PREFERRED PRONOUNS: WHAT SCHOOLS AREN’T REQUIRED TO TELL PARENTS
In some of the biggest schools across St. Louis County, biological girls are using the pronouns “he” or “they” in their classrooms because they have chosen to identify as boys or as neither gender (boys use preferred pronouns, too). Surprisingly, our research shows no one is required to tell the parents or ask them if it’s ok. According to documents we obtained in a Sunshine Law request: there are local schools that only require school staff to include parents if name or pronoun changes are made on official district records. Parent notification is not required for UNofficial changes, such as what a student is called during class. More detail on what we found is below.
Whether parents have the right to know what’s happening with their children at school is so contentious right now that legislation and lawsuits have been filed in multiple states across the country.
In St. Louis County, we know students are identifying as the opposite gender and we know school staff are willing to hide it. You may have already heard about what happened in the Parkway School District last spring. The district was in the news after emails revealed a counselor was asking whether school staff HAD to tell parents their 5th graders were wearing chest binders to school (to identify as boys). The question came up after one of those 5th graders passed out during PE, unable to breathe because the binder was too tight. The incident and emails are detailed, here.
Webster Groves was in the news December 5th for an “about me” worksheet that a high school teacher has given students, which asks whether their preferred names and pronouns should be used when the teacher talks to their parents.
The St. Louis County Family Association is bringing awareness to this topic to prompt positive change and ensure no parent is left uninformed or has to go through a situation like this one in Florida:
Parents in Florida say they didn’t find out what was happening with their preteen daughter until her mental health plummeted. They are suing a school district there after what they call months of secret meetings between the 12-year-old and school counselors, about her gender identity. They say they didn’t know she was using a male name and male pronouns at school.
“We were in shock because our daughter never showed any signs of questioning her biological sex,” said Wendell Perez.
Peres has told their story in multiple news interviews. You can read more about what happened, here and here.
Because parent notification related to gender identity changes isn’t always required in schools around St. Louis County, school staff can conceivably withhold information from parents the same way it was allegedly withheld from the Perez family.
WHAT WE FOUND
We checked with seven school districts in St Louis County.
Here’s a brief summary of what we found:
OFFICIAL CHANGES = PARENT PERMISSION
UNOFFICIAL CHANGES DO NOT REQUIRE IT
Any name or pronoun changes to official school records, such as registration, transcripts or in student information systems, DOES require parent permission. However, the rules aren’t the same when it comes to what happens in the classroom.
According to documents and information provided by these public-school districts:
In Mehlville, staff should “generally avoid” telling parents about unofficial gender identity changes unless the student says it’s ok to tell the parents.
In Ladue, students can request to use a different pronoun (in class) without their parents’ permission.
In Webster Groves, teachers can print their class rosters and make name and pronoun changes to the paper version, without parental approval. As stated above, the district was just in the news after a teacher asked whether students’ preferred names and pronouns should be used when talking to the students’ parents.
In Rockwood, teachers are allowed to ask students for their preferred pronouns in class.
In Parkway, a document provided by the district doesn’t say parent permission is required for pronoun changes in the classroom, even after the binder incident we mentioned above, that caused a student to pass out.
Kirkwood and Lindbergh did not provide information.
For more details on each of those districts and documents they provided, click here.
SOCIAL TRANSITION
When biological boys or girls use pronouns of the opposite gender, or when girls wear binders to flatten their breasts, those are forms of “socially transitioning.” The St. Louis County Family Association feels strongly that parents have a right to know if their children are socially transitioning at school. Social transition is a first step that can lead to more permanent transition.
“By encouraging social transitioning, many school officials are putting children on a path toward medical transition, including hormone therapy and surgery. These treatments cause irreversible damage, locking a child into physical changes for a lifetime.”
That quote is from an article written by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian law firm that advocates for parents’ rights. In the article, ADF wrote about the Perez family’s situation.
INFLUENCING IDENTITY?
In perhaps our most striking discovery, school districts can hide from parents that their children are identifying as a different gender, yet openly promote the behavior through lesson instruction, books, or other materials.
In the Webster Groves school district, elementary school counselors teach students about gender roles by reading a book to them called "My Princess Boy." The lesson materials make it sound like the book is about challenging gender stereotypes to show, for example, that girls like to play football or boys like to bake. But in the book, a 4-year-old boy likes to wear dresses and a tiara when he climbs trees. His dad calls him pretty.
In that same district, a fixation on gender identity became so pervasive, it was causing classroom distractions. One school’s principal sought advice about it in 2022, from the district’s diversity director:
“We have some 5th grade students who are in the midst of questioning their gender identity. Some of those students have been doing this since the beginning of the year, while others are starting now—there are also students who are attempting to be allies and supportive of their peers, however it’s becoming consuming and distracting from the lessons the teachers are trying to accomplish.”
Image of the email is below:
Now 7th graders, those same students will see even more focus on gender identity again this school year. According to documents from the district, during Growth and Development class, 7th graders watch a video about gender identity called: Range of Gender Identities.
Other potential influences at school include:
Various gender identity terms were on display last April, in the hall at Rockwood Summit High School, under the title, “Rockwood Summit Celebrates.”
All seven districts we researched have the picture book “It Feels Good To Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity” in their school libraries. The book explains that sometimes people are both boy or girl or neither boy or girl.
None of the districts requires teachers and staff to tell parents if their children are identifying as the opposite gender in class.
INFLUENCES CAN LEAD TO CHOICES
Detransition activist Katie Anderson says what she saw at school, and on social media, led her to identify as a transgender man right after high school, at the age of 18. She said so in a recent interview, around the 7:45 mark:
“That was definitely a lot of it. That, here I am, seeing it. As a young adult, as a teenager seeing this, seeing all these lifestyles celebrated and seeing that this is perfectly healthy and if I'm uncomfortable in any way with the way that I'm developing, that I should choose the transgender lifestyle.”
Anderson says she spent years on testosterone, had a double mastectomy, and, when the testosterone caused abdominal pain and damaged her reproductive organs, she also had a hysterectomy by the time she was 24.
Anderson now lives again as a woman. Although parent notification wasn’t needed for her decisions as an adult, Anderson testified last session in favor of a parents’ rights bill in New Hampshire.
MISSOURI LAWMAKERS SHOULD TAKE ACTION
The St. Louis County Family Association strongly encourages Missouri lawmakers to pass parents’ rights legislation this session that ensures parents will be notified of any sign that children are questioning their gender at school. You can help by calling your legislator and asking them to do the same.
We should do what we can to avoid what happened to Wendell Perez and his family.
” Our daughter was living a double life without our consent or knowledge…As a family, we had to pick up the pieces, clean up the mess and start a period of painful healing.”