Parents are a child’s first and most important decision-makers. I recently listened to an Alliance Defending Freedom parental-rights forum, where attorneys and advocates from across the country made a clear case: schools should not be making major decisions about a child’s identity behind a parent’s back.
A central concern was school policies that use a different name or pronouns for a student at school without telling the parents. The result is a child with one identity at school and another at home. No school should keep that kind of information from the people who are legally and morally responsible for the child.
The concern extends beyond the classroom. In some states, a parent who declines to affirm a child’s asserted gender identity can face scrutiny in child-welfare proceedings. The speakers argued that a parent’s disagreement, standing alone, should never be treated as abuse or neglect. They discussed model state legislation to that effect, along with a federal proposal to place guardrails in Title IV of the Social Security Act, which funds state child-welfare systems, so that parents raising a child according to biological sex are protected no matter which state they live in.
New Jersey offers a real example. In Moms for Liberty v. Chatham School District, parents raised free-exercise, due-process, and free-speech claims against a school policy on social transition. They asked for parental notice, the ability to opt out of a school-facilitated transition, and parental consent before any outside counseling or referral. The district reportedly announced it would abandon the policy, but the plaintiffs are still pressing for preliminary relief so the issue cannot simply be declared moot and quietly revived later.
The forum also addressed privacy and fairness for girls. Speakers argued that the Title IX reasoning in B.P.J., an athletics case, supports reading “sex” as biological sex and could extend to bathrooms and locker rooms, despite earlier decisions such as Grimm v. Gloucester County. In athletics, presenters described a female wrestler who was not told beforehand that her opponent was male, and the pending Brown/K.M.K. v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association lawsuit, which alleges that a male wrestler sexually assaulted a female wrestler during a December 2025 girls’ tournament.
The speakers believe recent court decisions and federal enforcement have shifted the legal landscape toward parents, and that many local school boards do not yet realize how these developments affect their existing policies. Parents who are concerned should request their district’s written policies and raise the issue with their school board.
In Part 2, we look at curriculum transparency, opt-out rights, and the new fights over school surveys and mental-health screening.
Here at The Michael Brady Lynch Firm, we believe in parental rights. If you or a loved one has suffered at the hands of school administrators attempting to give your child one identity at school and another at home, please reach out to us at 888-585-5970.
Brandon Salter
Editor-in-Chief