Parents, not school administrators or teachers, should be the ones making final decisions for their children’s well-being. Throughout American history, this principle has been understood to be a cornerstone of liberty. Yet, across the country in recent years, public school systems have increasingly sidelined parents while encouraging their children’s gender confusion behind closed doors. The United States House of Representatives recently took a major step to address this problem by passing the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act. If signed into law, this bill would require that elementary and middle schools that receive federal funds obtain parental consent before making changes to a child’s pronouns, preferred name, and gender markers on any school forms, or before allowing a student to use opposite-sex bathrooms and locker rooms. Most importantly, the bill would withhold funds from schools that “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology.” This bill seeks to address a widespread social contagion. School officials in states around the country have socially transitioned children or exposed them to gender ideology without parental notice or consent, and at times directly against parental instructions. In more than one case, children have ultimately attempted suicide after school officials exposed them to this ideology. In Massachusetts, a school counselor encouraged an eleven-year-old girl to meet with her weekly to discuss gender-related issues as the school facilitated her social transition. All this happened without her mother’s knowledge and despite her mother’s specific instructions to the school not to discuss gender identity with her daughter. In another case, a school reassured a mother that nothing unusual was happening at school despite her declining academic performance. In fact, the school was facilitating the child’s social gender transition the entire time. Even when the mother withdrew her child from the school, officials continued to communicate with the child about gender identity. In New Jersey, a school worked to ensure a father would not discover his daughter’s social transition at school, even using her legal name during announcements to avoid alerting siblings who might inform him. And in Colorado, a teacher encouraged two eighth-grade girls to attend after-school meetings of the Gender and Sexualities Alliance Club. When one of the girls attended, a substitute teacher told the assembled children that they were “likely transgender” if they “were not completely comfortable with their bodies,” and warned them that telling their parents about the meeting “might not be safe.” The other girl, sometime after attending the meeting, asked her parents to homeschool her so she could avoid the teacher who had invited her and who “kept asking” her to come back. The girl identified her attendance at that meeting as the beginning of her mental health decline, which resulted in her ultimate attempt to take her own life. The Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act would not completely eliminate these problems. But it would provide a significant roadblock to gender indoctrination in schools around the country. Parents must be the ones making these important decisions for their children, not teachers and school administrators. As case after case has shown, when schools attempt to cut parents out of their children’s lives, the consequences are devastating. Congress, states, and local school boards all must act to restore parental authority. Passing the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act would be a critical step in the right direction. *** J. Marc Wheat is the General Counsel at Advancing American Freedom Foundation.