Will Normalcy Prevail? Majority Think Schools Should Not Keep Secrets from Parents

The majority of Democrats believe that schools have a right to conceal students' transgender tendencies at school from their parents.

The majority of American voters disagree with allowing schools to affirm a student’s gender change without notifying parents, according to a fresh poll reviewed by the international V4NA news agency. 

Questions surrounding students’ gender change has proved particularly divisive in the United States in recent years, following a spate of cases where schools have failed to inform parents about their children's gender change. In some cases, the schools have deliberately concealed from the parents that their kids were using a different name or pronoun at school, and wearing different clothes than at home.

According to a recent poll conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, the majority of likely US voters say they disagree with allowing schools to affirm a student’s gender change without notifying parents, Just the News highlights.

The poll of over 2,000 likely voters found that 59 percent disagreed with the statement that „schools should allow students to use different names or pronouns without notifying parents.”

However, an astounding 31 percent – less than a third – of respondents were of the opinion that schools should be permitted to keep gender and name changes away from parents.

David Byler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights, said in an interview that this poll shows where most people stand on the issue of parental notification versus protections for sexual minority youth at school.

Voters believe that parents need to be notified and that there is a role to be played where parents get to raise their own children,

– Byler said. „It’s pretty open and shut in this poll, and others as well, that the idea of shutting the parents out of the process – that this is something that happens only with schools and teachers are notified while parents are walled off from information,” he added.

Likely voters ages 18-34 were the most likely to support allowing schools to avoid notifying parents about gender and name changes, with 54% supporting such policies. Democrats followed them at 51% in favour.

65 percent of true independents, 78 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats said they do not believe that schools should withhold this information from parents.

– „This is one of those »cultural wedge issues« where one side of the political spectrum is united, and the other side is divided or unsure,” Byler said. „This is not something where it’s polarized, and that’s part of the reason why you see Republicans using this in so many elections. It’s because it’s an area that unifies their own base and splits their opponents’s base,” he added.

The poll also revealed, that those with children were more likely to support parental notification policies. A higher percentage of parents with children over 18 support parental notification policies (69%) than those with children under 18 (54%). However, even 51% of likely voters without children support a parent’s right to know about changes to gender and names, according to the poll.

Cover photo: Illustration (Photo: AFP/Kisbenedek Attila)