This Disability Law May Be Parents’ Secret Weapon Against Transgender Policies in School
2nd September 2026
The law firm America First Legal released a parental rights toolkit Tuesday, explaining how a law that protects the rights of disabled children also helps parents defend their rights when schools adopt policies hiding a child’s transgender identity from parents.
“Parents hold the fundamental and constitutionally-protected right to direct the upbringing of their children, and that includes authority over their children’s education,” Julie Alexa Strauss, general counsel at America First Legal, said in a statement on the new toolkit, exclusively provided first to the Daily Signal. “Yet today, radicalized school personnel are exploiting their access to children, particularly vulnerable children with disabilities—often behind closed doors—to push ideological agendas.”
“Congress gave parents of children with special needs powerful legal rights, but too many families are never made aware of just how extensive those protections are,” Strauss added. “AFL’s IDEA Toolkit helps parents understand those rights, empowers parents to assert their authority, and holds schools accountable when they overstep the law.”
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, first passed in 1975 but renamed in 1990, guarantees children with disabilities access to a free, appropriate public education.
America First Legal argues that the law “also gives parents extensive authority over evaluations, educational services, school records, and individualized education programs.”
The law firm states that its “IDEA toolkit arms parents with an arsenal of tools designed to ensure that they, not the government, remain in control of their children’s education.”