Code of Parental Rights

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Written by Lisa Shultz and inspired by Vernadette Broyles, Our Duty, and other individuals and organizations that work to protect children and vulnerable adults and advocate for parental rights.

Parents have the right to:

· Believe that sex is binary and immutable and to teach their child the truth about science and human biology.

· Protect their child from harmful, unproven treatments.

· Teach their child that the child’s body is not the enemy or the problem and the child’s sex is not a disease.

· Guard their child’s right to experience natural and healthy growth and development in harmony with the body that the child was born with.

· Protect their child from damage to the child’s body or from the removal of healthy organs and body parts.

· Preserve their child’s capacity to have biological children and to pass on their own genetic and familial inheritance.

· Teach their child that feelings can change, and most often do change, particularly in adolescence and early adulthood.

· Educate their child that no one can ever change sex and that when someone claims they can change sex, they are making a promise that can never be fulfilled—creating an ever-moving target that will likely leave them dissatisfied for the rest of their life.

· Ensure their child is offered comprehensive medical care, which includes differential diagnoses, a mental and holistic health assessment, and options for non-invasive treatments and therapies to explore and treat underlying comorbidities and the root causes of their child’s distress. These root causes could be trauma; mental health issues; the influence of autistic traits; family dysfunction; a desire to escape shame, pain, loss, or the responsibilities of growing up; and many other causations of gender confusion.

· Prevent their child from unnecessarily becoming a lifelong medical patient and a servant to the medical community that, in effect, would control them.

· Access truthful academic research and medical information, untainted by ideology and confirmation bias.

· Be empowered to protect their child based on full medical information without misrepresentation or coercion.

· Preserve the facts on their child’s birth certificate. Parents have the right for this documentation of historical and medical facts to remain intact and not be subject to revision, deletion, or falsification based on feelings. Name and sex on the birth certificate should not be altered without the notification, permission, or consent of the parents listed on the document. If the document is altered, the original content must remain traceable within the content of the revised document.

Learn more at Child & Parental Rights Campaign and Our Duty.

Lisa Shultz