Samantha Allen @SLAwrites is a senior reporter for The Daily Beast. She holds a Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University. In 2013, she received the John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology from the Kinsey Institute. Previously, she was a Sex + Life reporter for Fusion.

For transgender kids, home is not always a safe place to be out of the closet.

According to an online resource from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), most kids “have a stable sense of their gender identity” by age 4. But they don’t reach the legal age of majority until at least 14 years later—sometimes longer, depending on the state.

That means many transgender children spend over a decade in the custody of someone who may not support them, and who may try to enroll them in harmful conversion therapy programs to try to change their gender identity.

Which is why a rash of new proposals that would effectively require schools to out transgender children to their parents is such a colossally bad trend.

In Ohio, as ABC News reported, Republican lawmakers recently proposed a bill that, according to its text, would require any “government agent or entity,” including schools, to “immediately notify, in writing, each of [a] child’s parents” if the child shows “symptoms of gender dysphoria or otherwise demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner opposite of the child’s biological sex.”

In Delaware, as Rewire reported on July 5, the state Department of Education added proposed language to an anti-discrimination guideline.

The new language would require that schools “request permission from the parent” before processing any “request by a minor student” to “recognize a change in any Protected Characteristic,” such as gender.

That language is certainly more euphemistic than the Ohio bill but the net effect would be the same. Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow referred to the Delaware regulation in a statement as “forced outing,” adding that it would “undermine the health, safety and dignity of kids who deserve our support.”

Such bills could indeed pose a potential threat to transgender health.

Researchers have found that social support plays a significant role in reducing the risk of suicide among the marginalized population. Read more via Daily Beast