MARC WHEAT: The Gender Agenda Is Anti-Parent

Around the country, school authorities are “socially transitioning” (treating a boy as a girl or a girl as a boy) students if they say they are experiencing gender dysphoria behind parents’ backs. Washington State is no exception to this trend, but it does not stop there. A 2023 Washington law directs state licensed shelters that take in a runaway child not to contact parents but rather to contact the state Department of Children, Youth and Family Services (DCYF) if that child is seeking “gender-affirming treatment.” While advocates for such policies would suggest they are trying to protect the interests of the children, a moment of thought shows that they are only protecting their own agenda.

In a recent article for Vox preemptively criticizing the Supreme Court for protecting parental rights in schools, Ian Millhiser wrote that, “when a child tells their teacher that they are transgender, and that they do not want their parents to know this fact about them, that child is asserting their own right to self-determination.” This supposed right of children to “self-determination” has a flaw that should be immediately obvious to anyone who once was, but no longer is, a child. Children do not have the wisdom and maturity to make critical decisions for themselves without adult attention and supervision.

Laws across the country and of various types recognize this fact. Contracts with minors are often non-enforceable. Minors need parental consent for all kinds of medical interventions and for body alterations like tattoos and piercings. And minors cannot consent to engage in sexual activity with adults.

As the great Thomas Sowell wrote in Knowledge and Decisions, “The most basic question is not what is best but who shall decide what is best.” When it comes to children’s decisions, the question is not whether others will influence that decision; it is only who will do so.

For gender ideologues, only those who “affirm” a child’s supposed transgender identity should be allowed to influence the child’s decision making.

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