June 16th marked two years since the passage of New Mexico’s HB 7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Healthcare Act, which mandates that public bodies—including schools—protect access to gender transition, including social, hormonal, and surgical transition. And yet, the overwhelming majority of New Mexicans believe in safeguarding parental rights from ideologues who seek to “transition” minors behind their parents’ backs and in protecting minors from irreversible elective medicalization in the name of “gender transition.” How much do you know about gender policies in New Mexico? Can you identify which of these statements is false?
A. Eight school districts in New Mexico have policies that allow children to transition at school behind their parents’ backs.
B. Almost 90% of New Mexicans oppose minors accessing medical or social transition without parental consent.
C. HB 7 has safeguards built in to ensure that parents can protect their children from the lifelong medical, social, and psychological repercussions of childhood gender transition.
A. TRUTH! Eight school districts in New Mexico have policies stating school personnel should hide children’s transgender status from their parents: Albuquerque, Gadsden Independent, Gallup-McKinley, Las Cruces, Los Alamos, Moriarty-Edgewood, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe. Gallup-McKinley, for instance, uses guidance from the National School Boards Association, which reads, “School staff should privately ask transgender or gender nonconforming students how they want to be addressed in class and in school communication with the student’s parents or guardians, with whom the student may not have shared their gender identity.” In other words, this district, among others, effectively forces school staff to transition children without parental approval, and not only allows unscrupulous adults to manipulate children’s identities, but forces even the best school personnel to act as unlicensed therapists in all but name.
B. TRUTH! Per recent polling, most New Mexicans do not support extreme policies on so-called gender transition and believe that parents must be included in any and all decisions regarding their children’s health and safety, at school or outside of it.
C. LIE! While HB 7 applies to children, it makes no mention of parents. The law shows that radical New Mexico legislators believe all children belong to the state, as opposed to their parents.
Bottom Line: Policies in New Mexico are not only denying biological reality—they are harming children in their wake. To learn more about what’s happening in New Mexico, read Independent Women’s latest report HERE.