After attempting to establish the most basic protections for transgender students across Nevada, the state’s Department of Education delayed the policy’s passage following a public hearing at which many parents reportedly objected, invoking “Christian beliefs” and “moral values.”

Nevada is just the latest state to propose or approve protections specifically for trans youth — California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine, and Delaware among them — that address a range of issues, from the right to choose one’s gender pronoun to the restroom that feels most appropriate.

The proposal in Nevada, which did not address bathroom usage, was a response to a 2017 anti-bullying law, effective as of July, requiring districts to establish policies for schools that address “the rights and needs of persons with diverse gender identities or expressions.” Each of the state’s 17 districts must either establish its own set of more expansive rules or adapt the general ones set in place by the state department of education, which were the subject of Tuesday’s meeting.

Those rules, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “would require districts to allow students to have their preferred name used during graduation and other ceremonies; would allow students to pick the cap and gown combination appropriate to their gender identity; and would generally require districts to take steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, bullying, and cyber-bullying of transgender students.”

That basic list, department policy maker Amber Reid tells Yahoo Lifestyle, was borne of a requirement “to identify needs that are best practice” for gender-diverse students in the state.

But the department of education delayed passage of the rules after a nearly three-hour public hearing in Las Vegas that packed a boardroom and an overflow room with vocally critical parents. Read more via Yahoo