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The U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office recently launched an investigation of a Massachusetts school district following reports that school officials allegedly facilitated the “gender transition” of a minor student without the knowledge or consent of the child’s parents.
Earlier this week, Democrats effectively boycotted a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on fairness in women’s sports. Only two Democrats (Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota) were present on the dais. Neither called witnesses, and only Durbin spoke.
His contribution was to dismiss the issue altogether.
“If you ask the American people, what are the priority issues you hope Congress will address as soon as possible, the issue of this hearing would not be in the top 10, maybe not the top 20,” he said.
And this week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr responded to congressional Democrats who signed a letter urging the commission to abandon a proceeding seeking public comment on whether the television ratings system should be updated to provide parents with more information about potentially controversial content in children’s programming, including LGBTQ+ themes, messages, and characters.
Carr did not mince words in his response: “You stake out the radical position that parents have no right to know whether controversial gender identity ideologies are being promoted in children’s television programming. In your view, parents should not be empowered to make informed choices about the programs their children watch.”
Maybe you have already picked up on the thread that runs through these stories.
In every case, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has acted to keep parents at arm’s length while advancing radical gender ideology among the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. They have dismissed legitimate concerns about fairness and privacy, resisted transparency, and consistently championed trans rights over parental rights.
But their position is increasingly untenable, particularly as we head into the midterms.
Because while progressive politicians insist that these issues are overblown, irrelevant, or unworthy of congressional attention, parents are paying attention. And they are increasingly unwilling to surrender their authority over their own children.
Consider the television ratings debate.
CWA polling found that 87% of parents want television content ratings to advise them of violence, sexual content, or other sensitive themes, including LGBTQ messaging or characters, in children’s programming.
CWA polling also found that 60% of Americans definitely or probably believe it is concerning that a recent study found LGBTQ+ themes, characters, and storylines in nearly half of Netflix programs rated appropriate for children.
Parents should be able to decide what their children watch without having to conduct their own investigation into the ideological content of every show marketed to young audiences. Yet the very people who insist that parents should have maximum choice are resisting the most basic tool that makes choice possible: transparency.
And the disconnect extends well beyond television.
Over 69% of Americans say it is “very” or “somewhat” important in deciding who to vote for this election that candidates oppose forcing female athletes to compete against biological males identifying as girls or women or to share locker rooms with them.
Yet Sen. Durbin would have Americans believe the issue barely registers among their priorities.
Note to progressives: You do not get to decide which concerns matter to parents.
And you do not get to dismiss the public’s concerns simply because acknowledging them would require confronting the consequences of your own policies.
For years, the progressive movement has demanded that Americans accept the proposition that gender identity supersedes biological sex, that affirmation must take precedence over caution, and that institutions should be free to make decisions about children without meaningful parental involvement.
Now, when parents object, they are told they are hateful. When women raise concerns about fairness and privacy, they are told they are engaging in fearmongering. When Americans ask what their children are being exposed to, they are told the issue is manufactured.
This is not an effective strategy for winning public trust. It is a strategy for alienating the very people whose support these politicians will need in November: women and mothers.
The midterms will not be decided by a single issue. But candidates who dismiss parental concerns about children’s privacy, education, entertainment, and athletic opportunities do so at their own peril.
Parents are not asking for special privileges. They are asking for what should be uncontroversial in a free society: the right to know, the right to decide, and the right to protect their children.
If the Left continues to side with institutions that exclude parents rather than families who are asking to be heard, voters may have a very clear answer for them come November.
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Melissa Henson is the Senior Policy Advisor for Media and Culture for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s public policy women’s organization, dedicated to promoting biblical values and constitutional principles in public policy. On X: @CWforA
