Who gets to call the shots when it comes to a child at school: the parent or some faceless state bureaucrat? In New Jersey, it seems that question has been a vexing gray area. That is, until now. A seismic “win for parental rights and common sense” just crashed into the Garden State, allowing three school districts to drop a controversial transgender student policy.

In the years-long legal tug-of-war with the state, the school districts contended that parents should be kept in the loop of their children’s identity, while the state appeared dead set on allowing trans-identifying students to hide their altered identities from their moms and dads. The tension between the two originated in Policy 5756, simply dubbed “Transgender Students.”

In 2018, the New Jersey Department of Education was instructed, via a 2017 law, to create “guidelines” for handling the issue of transgenderism at school. Individual school districts began to adopt Policy 5756 or some version of it. However, after a few years of growing concern, the controversy seemed to erupt between 2020 and 2023 when parents argued that the policy, which was quietly implemented, ripped the rug out from under them, greenlighting secret transitions.

As a result, several school districts began amending the policy or striking it all together. This, however, sparked lawsuits from Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D), who filed civil rights complaints against the Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown, and Marlboro in Monmouth County districts that wanted to mandate parental notification. Platkin claimed that such mandates would put trans-identifying students at risk and violate anti-discrimination laws.

As such, those against Policy 5756 argued it increasingly morphed into a tool eroding parental rights, as it paved the way for trans-identifying students to be hidden under the veil of “privacy.” But in early February 2025, the state’s grip shattered when an appellate court ruled on Monday that the policy is optional, freeing school districts to ditch or revise it as they see fit. “Sense has started to return,” wrote the New York Post.

The outlet also highlighted how this New Jersey case reached a consensus during a time engulfed in radical change. “A lot has shifted culturally in two years,” the outlet stated, especially “in regard to transgender minors. Countries like England and Norway pumped the brakes on giving puberty blockers to youths with gender dysphoria. And President Trump has signed an executive order to halt medical intervention for gender transitions in anyone under 19.” As Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, told The Washington Stand, “We have seen a quiet retreat from the Left on gender ideology since the 2024 election.”

As he went on to say, “They are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this issue. Do they pretend like they never really were that supportive of gender ideology?” The consequence of this, Carpenter explained, is that “they risk demoralizing or angering their base who have followed them as they sought to rewrite civil rights laws to accommodate people based on their subjective ‘gender identity,’ allow men to compete in women’s sports, and even promoted harmful and irreversible gender transitions for minors, and more.” On the other hand, he asked, “do they double down and refuse to compromise?” If so, “this would further entrench moderate and Independent voters with the Right, who appear much more sensible to them than the Left does.”

When it comes to this “specific example of New Jersey,” Carpenter noted, “their state is swinging dramatically to the Right. In 2020, Biden won New Jersey by 16 points … [I]n 2024, Harris won New Jersey by just 6 points. At the rate the state is moving right, New Jersey could very well be a swing state soon.” Carpenter concluded that “if they refuse to acknowledge the electorate’s distaste of gender ideology, they risk hastening the day when GOP presidential candidates compete for their state’s 14 electoral college votes.”