All except three states in the United States have approved or are considering passing legislation safeguarding parents’ rights to prevent their children from being exposed to gender ideology in the classroom.
More than two hundred New Hampshire residents showed up this past week to support proposed parental rights legislation, making the Granite State one of the states receiving the most attention from observers of pending legislation.
The gay Republican from New Hampshire, Dan Innis, told media outlets that he thinks the increasing popularity of parental rights measures is because the transgender movement’s exclusion of parents from the decision-making process regarding their children “goes just too far,” even in the eyes of liberals.
However, LGBTQ groups and teachers’ unions have voiced concerns that these parental rights measures put children in “dangerous situations” by removing the safe space of a trusted adult at school where they can talk about their gender identity without fear of retaliation.
Various media groups tried to get more information from Howes, but he never got back to us.
The American Civil Liberties Union has just created an interactive map depicting the locations of more than 460 pieces of “anti-LGBTQ” legislation presently pending across the United States, including the one in New Hampshire.
A total of 220 laws apply to public schools and are divided among 47 states, the most liberal of which is California.
A review of these bills reveals that the vast majority seek to protect the rights of parents by mandating that they be informed about their children’s involvement in extracurricular activities, including the teaching of sexuality and gender identity, the use of preferred pronouns, and the adoption of a name other than the one given at birth.
Only in New York, Wyoming, and Nevada, where a parental rights measure seeking notification requirements about gender ideology was just defeated, is there no pending legislation related to parental rights or gender.
In highly conservative Wyoming, Republican lawmakers submitted multiple bills. Still, Speaker of the House Albert Sommers shocked his party by preventing their introduction. When Sommers’s decision spread nationwide, his fellow Republicans accused him of capitulating to teachers’ unions.
Sommers claimed he opposed the legislation because it would have usurped the power of state and local school boards.
The ACLU’s map showed that Illinois was one of just four states without any bills related to gender ideology in schools. In response to what co-sponsor Rep. Mary Miller has dubbed “dangerous transgender policies” in schools, Republicans have presented legislation to address the issue.
Despite the lack of parental rights legislation in those areas, the ACLU included them on their map because of a proposed ban on male students engaging in female sports in public schools.
Except for the conservative states of Connecticut and Vermont, the other four states that makeup one of the most liberal regions in the United States all have parental rights laws geared at gender identity issues in schools. This includes the bluest state in the country, Massachusetts.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives took a historic step last month when it passed a bill expanding parental rights nationwide.
The school’s failure to inform parents about efforts to change their children’s gender identity has drawn criticism even from New York’s liberal Westchester County.
Strange bedfellows have emerged from the discussion, such as the Christian group Child Parents Right and the LGBT rights group Gays Against Groomers, both of which have advocated for parental rights legislation.