NJ judge blocks school districts’ trans parental notification policies

(NewsNation) — A New Jersey judge in a ruling Friday blocked three school districts from enacting policies requiring parents be notified if a student makes moves to change their gender identity.

Three New Jersey schools were sued by the state over these policies. Now, the judge’s ruling keeps New Jersey’s temporary injunction against the districts in place until the court hears or decides to take on the full case.

The lawsuits, filed by the by state attorney general Matthew Platkin, say these policies violate state laws against discrimination and put transgender students at risk.

“‘Outing’ transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary students against their will poses serious mental health risks; threatens physical harm to students, including increased risk of suicide; and shirks the District’s duty to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all,” the state wrote.

Meanwhile, the schools say the policies are not asking for parental consent for children to change their gender identity at school and are instead designed to keep families in the loop.

One of the lawsuits was filed in Middletown, which is where New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy resides.

Much of the controversy started In June, when the Middletown School Board passed a policy disagreeing with New Jersey State guidelines for school districts. The state says there is “no affirmative duty for any school district personnel to notify a student’s parent or guardian of the student’s gender identity or expression.”

One mother of three whose kids go to school in the district says the state telling teachers to keep this information from parents is crossing a line.

“I don’t want my parental rights taken away. It’s my parental rights to defend my children,” Caterina Skalaski told NewsNation. “My parental rights to raise my children as how I see fit.”

However, transgender rights activist Coco Kuebler said qualitative and quantitative evidence has shown that forcing a student to come out is harmful to them.

“My question is what is the parental right there? What do you want the rights to?” Kuebler said. “To make a decision that’s going to harm your child feels to me very incompatible to that statement of professing love for children, whether it’s their own or somebody else’s.”

Middletown Board of Education member Jacqueline Tobacco said the issue came to light last year. Tobacco says at a policy committee meeting, they were informed by the administration that teachers had been using white-out to change the names of some children on documents being sent home to parents.

She called it a “concerted effort” by the administration to “obfuscate information” that the child was changing their name on school records.

“We were basically being duplicitous to parents about what was actually going on with their children,” Tobacco said.

Frank Capone, the head of Middletown’s school board, says he asked Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin, “Do you not want to know what’s going on in your child’s life?”

Murphy did not respond to requests for comment by NewsNation.

Psychologist Dr. Erica Anderson, who is transgender, advised Middletown’s school board on their policy and has been consulted in nearly a dozen state battles. She disagrees with the lawsuit’s claims of mental health risks.

“The rightful authority for the health and well-being of children resides with parents,” Anderson said. “To cut parents out of something so significant that’s happening at school is a grave mistake.”

Battles like these have been playing out in states across America. Erin Friday, a California mother, has been pushing for her state to pass a bill requiring school authorities to notify parents if a child wants to change their gender identity.

Friday says her own child transitioned as a freshman in public high school — something the school hid from her. Since then, Friday says, her child has detransitioned.

“I quit my job, and I decided that it was my duty to keep talking and telling my story, especially since I’m a Democrat of 37 years, and the press doesn’t ever want to talk about the fact that Democratic parents are against this,” Friday said. “It’s always framed as a right-wing or a religious issue, and it’s not — it’s a parental issue.”

A recent poll in California shows there are parents who agree with her, with 68% opposing teachers and school administrators keeping information about a child’s gender identity from parents.