A group of Republican lawmakers is attacking recommendations from the Michigan Department of Education on how schools should treat transgender students. State officials say the guidelines are meant to protect a group of students who often face assaults and threats on campus.

One recommendation is that schools allow transgender students to use the bathroom “in accordance with their gender identity.” Another would allow students to be called a name other than the one on their birth certificate.

Each of the 17 guidelines are recommendations — not mandates for schools. The elected state Board of Education will vote on them in May.

State Rep. Triston Cole of Antrim County says he is particularly opposed to a guideline advising that school officials ask students if they want their parents to know they are transgender.

“Parents have got to be involved in this,” Cole told IPR News Radio in an interview last week. “This cannot be something kept secret from a parent.”

State Rep. Triston Cole (R-Mancelona) explains why he is against state guidelines on how schools should treat transgender students.

Cole called the recommendations ‘beyond crazy’ in a Facebook post last week.

“[Students] could be in essence living a double life at school,” Cole said.

When asked if schools should recognize transgender students at all, Cole said a compromise could be for schools to offer transgender students a separate stall or bathroom.

“There’s two genders. There’s men and there’s women. There’s girls and there’s boys,” Cole said. “That’s how God designed us.”