Parents Should Be Leading: Is Knowing Your Child’s Gender ‘A Privilege, Not a Right’?

Parental rights are under attack in Canada—and thankfully some Canadians are standing up and saying, “Enough!” as evidenced by growing support in various provinces for bills that require parental consent for minors to use preferred names or pronouns at school. But not everyone believes that parents have the right to know if their child is transitioning at school.

An opinion piece recently appeared in the online newspaper The Toronto Star, titled, “It’s a privilege, not a right, to know your kid’s gender identity.” In this article, Julie Malbogat, the mother of an 11-year-old girl who identifies as a boy, expressed her horror that parents might be informed of a child’s social gender transition—after all, those parents might not be fully supportive.