Some conservative media outlets, including Fox News, have reported on alleged incidents of these hypothetical scenarios actually happening. But liberal media watchdog groups, such as Media Matters, have cited a range of officials and advocates in states that require inclusion denying those allegations. For example, Alexa Priddy, of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, told Media Matters: “Such criticisms of this law and ads [that] invoke what we see as ‘trans panic,’ an attempt to create fear of transgender people and a false label of trans individuals as sexual predators.”

Opponents of such policies say they only isolate children and put them at further harm. Schools, they argue, play a key role in raising awareness about the realities of transgender identities and in encouraging tolerance. “It’s hard for [students] to be their own advocates,” said GLSEN’s Kari Hudnell, and although explicit policies ensuring what’s often referred to as a “gender-inclusive learning environment” wouldn’t necessarily put an end to harassment and discrimination, they could avoid the need for that extra layer of support. They could also help eliminate what Sheila Cavanagh described in her 2010 book Queering Bathrooms as a “system of surveillance and policing of public spaces based on subjective assessments of a person’s gender and gender expression,” reducing the stress such students experience as gender minorities and working to prevent any confusion caused by an absence of guidelines.

Confusion is what often triggers emotional clashes like those at the Virginia schools—clashes that are distressing for both sides. Oftentimes an individual school is supportive and willing to provide accommodations but reverses course when it becomes embroiled in controversy. It’s frequently parents who raise questions; the PRRI survey this year found that young Americans are far more likely to believe transgender people face discrimination than are their older counterparts. Once “it gets public, you’ll see community pressure, or you’ll see a school board step in and consider something that wasn’t really an issue before,” Hudnell said. “Sometimes the school doesn’t know what to do so they will go to the board or the district and ask, ‘How do we handle this?’ … People who don’t really understand the issues [then start] weighing in.”

Hudnell acknowledged that concerns such as those expressed by Kingston are understandable. “What parent doesn’t want to protect their kids?” she said. But preventing a child from coming out, she emphasized, can be even more detrimental: “It’s really important for [transgender youth] to not feel like they can’t be who they are.”

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In 2013, California passed a law stipulating that students must be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school activities—like bathroom use and sports-team participation—based on the gender with which they identify, regardless of the sex listed for them in official records. Lawmakers in opposition to the bill, including the Republican Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, argued that the law places an unjust expectation on students, with Chavez saying in a press release that it “imposes the will of one individual over the rights of another” and “[alienates] many students and their families.” Nonetheless, legislators voting in favor of the proposal outnumbered those in opposition nearly two to one—and an effort to place a veto referendum on last November’s ballot failed to get enough votes.