Several school districts in the Commonwealth are still permitting gender identity concealment policies that cut parents out of their children’s medical care.
The Supreme Court recently sided with California parents challenging a 2025 state law that allowed, and even required, schools to withhold information about students’ gender identities from their parents.
The law, called the Support Academic Futures and Equality for Today’s Youth Act, took effect on January 1, 2025. It prohibited schools from adopting policies requiring staff to inform parents about a student’s gender transition.
“A school district… shall not enact or enforce any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that would require an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent, unless otherwise required by state or federal law,” said the California law.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that “these policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children… The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
Despite that ruling, at least 21 school districts and one intermediate unit in Pennsylvania still have similar policies in place that allow schools to keep students’ gender identities from their parents.
Districts in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties were found to have such policies in place.
“Therefore, Intermediate Unit personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others, including the student’s parents/guardians and/or other Intermediate Unit personnel, unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure,” reads the policy in place at the Chester County Intermediate Unit.
The School District of Philadelphia policy says that “the intentional or persistent refusal to respect a student’s gender identity (for example, intentionally referring to the student by a name or pronoun that does not correspond to the student’s gender identity) is a violation of this policy.”
The districts have not yet made changes to their policies in light of the Supreme Court ruling.
