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TRUDY RING

Kansas AG says schools must out trans kids to their parents — even without a law requiring it


Kansas’s far-right Republican attorney general, Kris Kobach, has ordered school districts to out transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students to their parents, saying that failing to do so is a violation of parental rights.


Kobach is making the move even though Kansas does not have a law requiring this disclosure.

He had written letters last year to six districts that he says allowed students to transition socially without notifying their parents. Two of the districts immediately changed their policies, but four have not, he announced Thursday. The four are Kansas City, Shawnee Mission, Olathe, and Topeka.


“Some schools denied that their policies cut parents out of the picture, but the Attorney General’s letters quote the offending language directly from those schools’ policies,” his announcement says.


He also sent a letter to the Kansas Association of School Boards saying it may have promoted such policies. “Has KASB surrendered to woke gender ideology to the point of jettisoning both propriety and common sense?” he asked in the letter.


“A child changing his or her gender identity has major long-term medical and psychological ramifications,” Kobach said in a news release. “Parents should know, and have an opportunity to be involved in, such an important aspect of their well-being.” He cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions as legal justification for requiring disclosure.


But Kobach ignores that if a young person doesn’t have supportive parents, this disclosure puts them at risk of abuse, eviction from their homes, or other consequences.


He obtained the list of districts through a conservative group called Parents Defending Education,The Topeka Capital-Journalreports. The group “is a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas” and “fighting indoctrination in the classroom,” according to its website.


Officials with the Topeka schools told the Capital-Journal that the district “works collaboratively with parents and their student(s) to protect their legal rights while maintaining a positive learning environment for all” and “