Aurora Regino slams school’s ‘parental secrecy’ policy after daughter’s gender transition

A California woman railed against her 11-year-old daughter’s school district over its so-called “parental secrecy” policy after it quietly helped the child transition from female to male – even though the girl wanted the counselor to inform her mom.

Aurora Regino claimed during a meeting of the Chico Unified School Board last week that her daughter’s school allowed the child to transition to a new identity in class without her knowledge or consent, The Daily Signal reported.

She said the girl had sought help from a “mental wellness” counselor after her father died and as her mom was battling cancer, according to the news outlet.

“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,” Regino said at the meeting, according to Fox News.

The board considered a measure that would allow for “more parental inclusion” but voted 3-2 to keep the existing so-called “parental secrecy policy,” which allows the district to keep parents in the dark if a child identifies by another gender at school.

“It was a really sad decision that they made, but unfortunately I wasn’t extremely surprised,” Regino told “Fox & Friends First.”

“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,” who now identifies as female again, she said.

“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 added.

She told Fox News that her daughter told her counselor she wanted her mom to be informed but that the staffer “dismissed her request and was trying to get her to come out to other people first.”

Regino said her daughter eventually told her grandmother, who then informed the mother.

The Center for American Liberty filed a lawsuit against the school’s superintendent and board members on behalf of Regino, The Daily Signal reported. The suit filed on Jan.6 asked the court to declare the school’s actions unconstitutional and issue an order preventing the school district from enforcing such a policy.

During last week’s meeting, pro-LGBTQ+ protesters showed up in force to support the district’s policy.

“Chico queers SHOWED UP tonight! So many beautiful, radical, queer babes came out to support trans & queer youth tonight at the Chico Unified School District meeting,” Lindsay Briggs, a professor of public health at California State University-Chico, wrote on Twitter.

“It took 7 HOURS but we emerged victorious at 12:16 a.m. and trans kids are safe tonight in Chico,” she wrote in the post, which included an image of a woman pointing a gun.

 “Not gay as in happy, but queer as in f— you,” read the caption.

Regino told the Center for American Liberty: “I’m still in awe about what I saw last night and how the Board allowed people to heckle and bully parents who were speaking about the right to be involved in their own children’s lives.

“This decision is devastating for parents not only here in our community but also across the country. The next step to fight back is legal action and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” she added, The Daily Signal reported.

In a statement, the center’s CEO Harmeet Dhillon said that “the Chico Unified School Board’s decision to keep the parental secrecy policy in place is a slap in the face to every parent whose child is under their care.

“It makes a mockery of fundamental, constitutionally protected, parental rights and puts every child’s safety at risk. If the Board won’t rescind this unconstitutional policy, our lawsuit will prompt the court to do it for them,” Dhillon added.