“During one of the meetings, my daughter told the counselor she wanted to tell me about her new identity. They ignored her request and did nothing to support her in letting me know what was going on at school,” she told board members at a meeting last week.
The board considered a proposal to allow for “more parental inclusion” but ultimately voted 3-2 to maintain the existing “parental secrecy policy.”
“It was a really sad decision that they made, but unfortunately, I wasn’t extremely surprised,” the angry mother told “Fox & Friends First” host Todd Piro on Tuesday.
This policy that they have in place, to keep these situations a secret from the family, is incredibly damaging. It was extremely damaging in my case with my daughter. She was bullied and she didn’t have the support that she needed from her family and, also, she was outed within the school with other people within the office knowing her new gender and pronouns that she didn’t even tell them, and she had to go through those feelings of wondering how they even knew all on her own,” Regino said.
Regino, who has filed a lawsuit against the district for not informing her about her daughter’s gender identity and transition, criticized the policy as “incredibly dangerous” and said that the fight for parental rights in the region had been a difficult one.
Regino explained to Pirro that her daughter is doing well, but she is committed to raising awareness about her family’s experience and the experiences of others in similar situations in public schools.
“When this originally happened to our family, nobody could’ve ever told me that this was going on, especially at the young age of elementary school,” she said, adding that the policy extends to children as young as five years old in pre-kindergarten and continues through the 12th grade.
“It’s incredibly damaging that they’re upholding such a crazy policy for such young children,” she continued, noting that at such young ages kids need parental guidance the most.