When "parental rights" becomes a media curse

Yes, there are screen-culture hooks in a new California law about kids and gender identity

Let’s keep this weekend “think piece” rather post short, because I know that I am veering into what many people consider political territory.

But, let’s face it, the Powers That Be in California are sending some seriously mixed signals to parents these days and, frankly, screen-culture issues are at the heart of it all. That and, of course, “parental rights” — framed inside “scare quotes.”

Just the other day, I wrote a Rational Sheep post (and there was a podcast, too) about this New York Times headline: “California Joins Growing National Effort to Ban Smartphone Use in Schools.” That’s a screens-culture story, pure and simple.

But what about this dramatic headline at The Free Press, atop a new commentary by the omnipresent Abigail “Bad Therapy” Shrier: “California’s New Law Lets Schools Keep Secrets from Parents — Gavin Newsom signs a bill that keeps parents in the dark if their kids change gender identity at school.”

In other words, it’s going to be harder for children in California to tune in their favorite TikTok gender influencers and trans support groups during school hours — they have to wait until later. And, if all that screens-culture input leads stressed-out, anxious kids (check the statistics in England, for starters) to choose what activists call gender-affirming care, taxpayer-funded educators are now encouraged to hide that action from parents.

For me, this raises a few questions:

* For years, conservatives have been criticizing public schools, often for reasons linked to faith, family and teachings about morality. Did lawmakers in California stop and think about the impact of this new secrecy legislation on parental trust in public schools?

* How many parents oppose this secrecy bill, but haven’t thought through the moral implications of handing smartphones to children?

* Here is a related question from just the other day: How many parents are afraid to let their children play in their yards, but are willing to let them smartphone portals to the Internet in their pockets?

* How many pastors (and religious educators) in culturally conservative faith groups from sea to shining sea are going to preach on California’s attack on parental rights, but will fail to address the wider issue of screen culture?

OK, back to Shrier. Here is the overture for her piece:

Child predators follow a common playbook: target the victim, gain their trust, fill a need, and, crucially, isolate the child from her parents. For several years, this has also been standard California state protocol with regard to schoolchildren questioning their gender identities. On Monday, this scheme became law.

The “SAFETY Act,” AB 1955, signed by California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, legally forbids schools from adopting any policy that would force them to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent.” Schools may not, as a matter of policy, inform parents of a child’s new gender identity unless the child volunteers her approval. The law also prohibits schools from punishing any school employee found to have “supported a pupil” hurtling down a path toward risky and irreversible hormones and surgeries.

The law effectively shuts down the local parents’ rights movement in California by eliminating its most important tool: the ability to organize at the community level to stop schools from deceiving them.

Once again, the emphasis there is on the law — with good cause.

But what is the tech “doorway” that most “predators” use these days to reach children and teens? Just asking.

OK, back to Shrier discussing several pieces of relevant legislation in California.

For those who are not familiar with her work, Shrier is an old-school liberal whose writings on the subject of rapid-onset gender dysphoria have yanked her into the “culture wars” arena. I would argue that her work is must reading — especially for parents, pastors, counselors and religious educators.

This is a long chunk of the Shrier essay, for those who do are not signed up to read her Substack — The Truth Fairy.

While researching my book, Irreversible Damage, and in the four years since its publication, I have talked to hundreds of parents whose daughters suddenly identified as transgender. Many of their daughters were encouraged in this revelation by school counselors and teachers in school districts across America. One parent told me a California school counselor had given her son the address of an LGBTQ youth shelter and suggested he emancipate himself from parents who were loving but skeptical of his sudden transgender identity. Another recent California law, AB 665, would have made reclaiming that young man from the youth center all but impossible because he was over the age of twelve.

In California, instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity has been mandatory for all public school students K–12 since the passage of the Healthy Youth Act in 2016. Because such instruction typically occurs within the required “anti-bullying curriculum” rather than the sex education curriculum, parents cannot elect that their children opt out of what is, in practice, a full-bore indoctrination into gender ideology. 

When a child then predictably decides in class that she too may be nonbinary or transgender, this revelation will often trigger schools’ gender support plan, effectively a school-wide conspiracy to promote the child’s new name and gender identity without tipping off Mom and Dad. Official documents and emails and report cards are sent to parents to preserve the child’s birth name and pronouns, concealing the social transition from parents. 

Is this a political issue? Yes, it is.

Is this a moral and religious issue, for millions of parents? Yes, it is.

Is this a tech issue, in the age of digital screen culture? Yes, it is.

Let us attend. Thus, read it all.