Sage's story is a *RESULT* of bad policy, not an exception.

Schools are "mandatory reporters" required to notify authorities if they suspect abuse. They cannot have it both ways--it can't be safe to send children home after school, for weekends and months of vacation and yet "unsafe" at the same time. Encouraging a child to believe they are "unsafe" and should keep secrets from their parents is both unethical and dangerous.

Opponents of Sage's Law, including in the hearing February 1, 2024, cited as their reason to vote against it the fact that it would "undermine the bond between a teacher and student".  

This view replaces the central bond between parent and child with a bond between an unrelated adult and the child. Teachers are valuable partners, but driving a wedge of secrecy between parent and child is dangerous and wrong. 

Dr. Erica Anderson is transgender and has cared for transgender patients for decades. Dr. Anderson served in the leadership of WPATH, the association that sets standards of care for transgender health, and has warned of the dangers of "triangulating", or of a third party pitting children against parents. 

Opinion: When it comes to trans youth, we’re in danger of losing our way, by Dr. Erica Anderson.

Legally, a child has no "constitutional right to privacy" from parents.  But more importantly, notifying parents actually protects children by recognizing that gender dysphoria carries unique vulnerabilities and is a serious mental health issue.  It is critical that parents not be in ignorance of their children's struggles. 

There are many issues a child might want to conceal from parents, often out of shame (no matter how the parent might in fact respond)--bullying, bad grades, conflicts with other students or teachers, sickness, eating disorders etc.  Schools conceal none of these from parents even if parents might be upset. There is no legitimate rationale for concealing gender dysphoria.

As it did in Sage's case, deceit has a domino effect and can precipitate a child into harm's way. A Florida family is suing their school district for keeping secrets about gender after the child attempted suicide. More than two dozen lawsuits across the country have been filed against schools.

Lawsuit Claims Gender Counseling to Blame for child's suicide attempts, by Brooke Migdon.

This claim is frequently made by activists, but is not substantiated by available data, which do not distinguish from children who have run away and those who have allegedly been thrown out of homes. 

This is a critical distinction, as there IS ample documentation of children encouraged to believe that their parents are "unsafe" if they do not agree with them,  and lured to leave their homes.  Secrecy in schools over gender compounds the risk to children  when are at their most vulnerable. If children run away, the risk of being abused or trafficked rises exponentially. 

Several blue states have established themselves as "sanctuaries," luring kids to run away, and protecting non-custodial parents or unrelated adults who take them across state lines for medicalization. Maine nearly passed a bill that would have followed the examples of California, Washington, Oregon and others.

Maine Follows Blueprint To Legalize New Form Of Child Trafficking, by Mary Rooke.

Should Public Schools be Allowed to Deceive Parents? No, and we need legislation to stop them, by Abigail Shrier.

If Your Parents Aren’t Accepting of Your Identity, I’m Your Mom Now  by Eliza Mondegreen.

Gender-dysphoric children are different from transgender adults, and adult transgender activists cannot be presumed—legally or morally—to speak for them. There is limited data on the benefits of transition for adults.  Children are a different patient population with different issues, and the evidence of benefit from transition is so weak, and the risk of harm so high, that every systematic review of the evidence by European nations has resulted in a sharp curtailment or outright cessation of affirmation in children. 

 Gender dysphoric children will typically desist if not affirmed.   The vast majority of children (upwards of 80%) eventually embrace their natal sex if not encouraged to transition. However, social affirmation concretizes what would often otherwise be a transient phase. Social affirmation is now recognized as a profound psycho-social intervention in itself. Major European nations including the UK, France, Sweden , Finland  and Iceland all have recognized this in various ways and sharply curtailed their recommendations for care accordingly. Chief of gender identity services in Iceland Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala says, below: "My country, and others, found there is no solid evidence supporting the medical transitioning of young people. Why aren’t American clinicians paying attention?"

Certainly, an intervention which concretizes a path toward medicalization entailing serious and irreversible risks should not be undertaken without parents' knowledge.

Many parents do not realize that the guideline calling for instant gender "affirmation" of pediatric patients was crafted by one resident, Jason Rafferty. The AAP never conducted a systematic evidence review, the gold standard for evidence-based medicine which should have preceded the adoption of care guidelines. An analysis of the profound flaws and errors in the guidelines can be found here: 

Transgender and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents: Fact-Checking of AAP Policy, by Dr. James M. Cantor.

Among the many "detransitioners" who have filed lawsuits over the medical harm they suffered from "affirmation", 2  have now filed lawsuits against Dr. Rafferty and the AAP.  Isabelle Ayala is one of them. Watch her story:

By hiding a child’s claim to gender transition in school, schools are de facto—and with no legal authority--treating minors as legally emancipated in this area of healthcare alone.

It is typical for gender-dysphoric children to have co-morbidities, and singling out gender can mask and even exacerbate other conditions. Again, as in Sage's case, the parents are the ones who know the full picture. Gender dysphoria is often tied to early sexual abuse, for instance, or other trauma, when a child mistakenly associates their gender with causing the assault.

 Removing a child from family is a life-changing adverse event, yet it is proffered as a solution by activists—in Virginia the Pride Liberation Project planned to “rehome” children. Yet, as Sage’s experience showed, the risks to children in foster care are much higher :  street drugs, neglect, and repeated assault. State custody was a terrible experience--her home was safe, the state was not.

In California, young Yaeli Martinez was removed from her loving home by the state and medicalized. Tragically, away from her family's support, she took her life.

Sage and Yaeli were harmed beyond measure by activist judges who removed them from loving families for ideological reasons.

 There is no test to distinguish between a phase and a more permanent sense of gender identity in gender dysphoric children. The decision-making and risk-assessment portion of the brain do not develop fully until the mid-20's. 

Children, even minor teens, cannot be presumed to consent, and there are skyrocketing numbers of detransitioners who were rushed to affirmation and whose stories are truly heartbreaking. 

“40% of kids will commit suicide if not affirmed”: this claim is patently false and has no evidence substantiating it. This statistic, often quoted by activists, is from a subjective survey by an advocacy group, using leading questions and offering prizes for participation. In fact, particularly over the long-term, the rate of suicide among adults having undergone gender transition increases even up to 19 times that of the regular population. 

As Dr. Julia Mason discussed in the expert witness portion of the hearing on Sage’s Law, the rate of suicide among gender dysphoric kids generally is thankfully low, and comparable to other conditions such as depression. 

 A comparison by Oxford researcher Michael Biggs between suicide rates in a large cohort of children receiving gender affirming care at the Tavistock Clinic in England, the world's largest gender clinic, and the children on the waiting list receiving no care, showed no statistical difference between the 2 cohorts. 

Further, there is evidence including in a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine that such care correlates with an elevated rate (2 completed suicides among trial participants).  

Lawmakers must recognize the transgender-suicide lie — and protect children, by Elliott Kaminetzky