Contrary to the thinly veiled rhetoric used to justify these policies, this strips away parents' rights by requiring the state to get involved in order to make it "legal" for parents to request schools to simply use their child's preferred pronouns. Parents will have to jump through bureaucratic obstacles in order to make such a simple and harmless request. Furthermore, children will be forced to make FULL LEGAL COMMITMENTS to changing their identity rather than being allowed the space to experiment with something as simple and inconsequential as pronouns and designations. Shouldn't children be encouraged to take their time when figuring out their identities, rather than be pressured to go all in? Requesting your peers to use a different name or pronoun for you is simple and reversible; going through legal requirements that, depending on local laws, can require hormone replacement therapy and legally documented name changes in order to be "recognized" as a different gender is much more complicated and harder to reverse. This could see an increase in children who just wanted to experiment regretting their choices and being forced to de-transition later in life, which comes with a host of trauma. The biggest threat to the safety and livelihood of a transgender youth actually comes from the home and family. Indeed, for many students, school can offer the one place they can feel safe, whether it means providing meals they lack at home or providing emotional support they lack at home. By forcing kids to come out to their parents or else stifle and silence themselves in misery, this puts children in abusive homes at more risk for homelessness and violence. At best, the full repercussions of this were not considered; at worst, this is a bigoted and deliberate attempt to stifle and snuff out trans people by gradually rolling back their rights inch by inch. Regardless, this move is completely authoritarian and to label it as expanding parents' freedom from government oversight is disingenuous; we will not be fooled.