The notable and controversial X.com account @LibsOfTikTok shared a document on December 18th from the Shaler Area School District that is titled “Gender Support Plan.” The @LibsOfTikTok account commented on the form in the original post alleging it helps “students to secretly change their gender identity at school, including what pronouns they use, their bathroom and locker room preferences, and how staff need to treat them.”
Allegheny County Republican Party Chairman and County Council Member-at-Large Sam DeMarco commented in reply to the original post, “Since when has Shaler gone woke? Time to replace that school board.” He then solicited interested candidates to contact him to run for school board.
The district’s staff and defenders in the media have pushed back on the criticism by claiming that the form “is not ‘secret’”. To make that claim, defenders of the district point to signature lines for the parent/guardian at the end of the form and the statement from Shaler Area that, “The Gender Support Plan is most commonly initiated at the request of an individual and their family.”
However, two fields on the form favor the @Libsoftiktok interpretation. First, there is a question, “Are the parents/guardians of this student aware and supportive of their child’s gender status?” with a follow-up question of, “If not, what consideration must be accounted for in implementing this plan?” This leaves open the possibility that parents are not made aware of a student and administrator or counselor who fill the form out together. Additionally, there is a query about “How public will information about this student’s gender be? Who may and may not be aware of the student’s gender identity?” In some way, this implies secrecy, as contended by @libsoftiktok.
The release of this form comes just two months after a decision in Tatel v Mt. Lebanon School District, a case from the south hills of Pittsburgh about parents’ rights to make decisions on issues of sex and gender. In May 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case from Maryland that challenged a similar policy to Shaler Area’s, which allowed for school officials to “transition” a student’s gender without alerting parents or guardians.
