There have always been children and adults who do not fit into male or female gender categories. In fact, gender-nonbinary people have been celebrated in Native and Indigenous cultures around the world for thousands of years. From a historical perspective, we can therefore see how the widespread discrimination against transgender people in the United States today is quite abnormal. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s new “parental rights” bill is only the most recent bill that would harm transgender youth if it becomes law.
Gov. Dunleavy’s education bill would allow parents to decide whether their students can even learn about the existence of transgender people in school, because the issue of gender identity is, in the governor’s words, tied to “family values.” But the painful truth is that many families do not value or accept their transgender children. As a result, more than 80% of transgender youth consider suicide and as many as half attempt to kill themselves — often because they have no safe place to be themselves. For transgender children living in unsafe homes, school may be their only sanctuary, the only place they can feel accepted. A 2022 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that a feeling of school-belonging protected transgender youth from suicidal thoughts more than any other factor. But Gov. Dunleavy’s bill would send a message to transgender students that they belong only if their parents say so.
In addition to restricting education about gender identity, the governor’s bill would also require that teachers obtain permission from parents before using transgender students’ pronouns or preferred names. Teachers would be forced to either “out” transgender students to potentially unsupportive families, or withdraw their own support and acceptance from the very students who need it most.
Alaska’s schools should be safe places for all students. As a parent, educator and licensed psychologist, I am confident that Gov. Dunleavy’s “parental rights” bill would cause great harm to transgender children. It must not become law.
— Kevin Tarlow
Anchorage
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