Trump Calls for Ban on Gender Secrecy Policies in Schools

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced his intention to eliminate schools that enforce gender secrecy policies. These policies, he stated, allow schools to transition confused youth without notifying their parents or obtaining consent.

The former presidents referenced Sage Blair, a guest at the event, before discussing the need to end these secrecy policies. At 14 years old, Blair was taken from her parents after officials in Virginia attempted to label her as male without her family’s knowledge. Her mother, Michelle Blair, who was also present at the address, has sued the local school district. In her lawsuit, she claimed the school covertly facilitated her daughter’s gender transition and, as a result, Sage ended up running away and faced horrifying circumstances, including being kidnapped and drugged by traffickers.

In the midst of their legal struggles, a judge even separated Sage from her family for not validating her “gender identity.”

“But now, that’s all behind them,” President Trump commented, noting that Sage has become a remarkable young woman who earned a full scholarship to Liberty University.

“Thank you for your incredible courage,” he continued. “Can you believe we’re even discussing this? Fifteen years ago, if someone had said anything like this, people would have looked at them and thought, ‘What’s going on?’ But now, it’s a reality in many states, often without parental notification.”

He added, “What we can universally agree on is that no state should permit children to be taken away from their parents and transitioned into another gender against their will. It’s astonishing we’re having this conversation. We need to put a stop to it, and we need to do it right away.”

Currently, the Department of Education is investigating the gender secrecy policies in various states, including California and Maine. According to the department, these policies may breach the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which safeguards parents’ rights to access their children’s educational records. Violations could lead to the loss of federal funding.

A group named “Parents Defending Education” has found that by 2025, over 1,000 school districts will have policies in place that could allow for hiding students’ transgender identities from their parents. This affects 21,314 schools and approximately 12.3 million students across the country.