Parental rights is a constructed term strategically framed to evoke legitimacy and moral authority (Fowler and Mountz, 2024). It is a phrase that rings with ofcourseness, a definitive sounding term that veils the underlying ideological motivation. A thought terminating cliche that discourages further inquiry. In this article, the ‘parental rights’ movement will be framed deliberately, enclosed in quotation marks, to signal its curated and ideological nature, because— as will be shown in this article—how we say things matters.
As Montell (2021) writes, “words are the medium through which belief systems are manufactured, nurtured, and reinforced” (p. 14). When these terms are repeated within popular media, they become, as Giroux calls it, a form of public pedagogy that instructs the public how to think about an issue or topic.
This piece examines how two National Post articles contribute to the public understanding of the ‘parental rights’ movement. Specifically, I consider how these two articles frame gender as an enemy, the child as property (in certain contexts), and public education as an opposition to traditional understandings of the ‘family’.
Although this analysis centers on the National Post, it offers broader insight into how mainstream media legitimizes, endorses, and mobilizes particular ideological views. The National Post was selected not only because of its ideological alignment with the movement, but also due to the sheer volume of coverage it has dedicated to the topic—publishing nearly twice as many articles on the subject as outlets like CBC or The Globe and Mail.
Privatizing the public
In a previous Our Schools/Our Selves publication featuring an article by Moore, Lopuck and myself, we argued that the parental rights movement should be recognized as a fourth pathway to privatization of public schools. This pathway involves the infiltration and enforcement of private values in public education, particularly those rooted in neoconservative ideology. Whereas public education is supposed to uphold decided public values, particularly those enshrined in human rights legislation, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which Canada ratified in 1991), the parental rights movement has resulted in private values—that run counter to established public values—being prioritized, enforced, and mobilized in public education. As these values become embedded, education’s purpose is redirected away from its democratic responsibility to the public good and toward the advancement of individualistic, moralistic agendas.
The two National Post articles analyzed here exemplify this shift: they frame gender diversity as a threat, construct moral panic around inclusive education, and portray deviation from normative masculinity as dangerous. In doing so, they evoke a call to restore the so-called “traditional family,” using language to justify exclusion and control.
At the core of the ‘parental rights’ movement is a discursive strategy of othering, particularly directed at gender non-conforming and 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, where gender diversity is framed as a threat to children’s innocence, family cohesion, and social order. This othering serves a dual function: it consolidates the role of the parent as the moral authority while casting school as actors of ideological subversion. As Butler (2024) argues, in neoconservative discourse, gender is a kind of amoral contagion, something that spreads, corrupts, and must therefore be contained. Such framings are not incidental; they serve the broader ideological work of restoring and safeguarding what Seymour (2024) calls the sanctioned fantasy of the nuclear family, where queerness is cast as the villain that disrupts moral and social order.
It is through this lens that these National Post articles can be understood as neoconservative/neoliberal projects engaged in the public pedagogy of fear, exclusion, and privatization. That is, these articles don’t just report, they teach. They frame public schools as dangerous, cast gender-diverse students as threats, and present parents as victims of a system that has supposedly turned against them. By using emotional language, refusing to acknowledge trans identities, and telling selective stories about whose rights matter, they work to make neoconservative values seem like common sense. In doing so, the articles help build a broader message: that public education should no longer serve everyone, but instead protect certain beliefs, identities, and family structures.
Combative language
Blaff’s (2024) National Post article, “Who’s Carl? When parents are the last to know about their trans kids” exemplifies this pattern. This nearly 5,000-word piece reads as a crusade against the public school system, presenting educational practices that respect children’s autonomy and identity as villainous. Blaff writes, “Ontario’s school board policies are ‘paving the way to family dissolution,’ Bildy said. They are ‘uprooting the bedrock support systems kids need to succeed in life.’” Here, the language constructs a combative dichotomy between schools and families. This framing aligns with the logic Butler (2024) critiques, in which trans identities are rendered not as expressions of self but as ideological threats, unnatural and in need of governing.
Another instance that exemplifies this combative language reads as follows: “Robin was stung by the policy pitting parents against their own children” (Blaff, 2024). While the surface structure of this sentence suggests a conflict between parent and child, its deeper function is to reassert parental ownership over children and frame the school system as the true antagonist. This framing draws on an ad hominem fallacy (attack against a person or group), in which the legitimacy of educational institutions is undermined not by critiquing their arguments or practices directly, but by attacking their trustworthiness, values, or alleged ideological agendas. Rather than offering a reasoned assessment of inclusive educational policy, the article reduces the conflict to an emotional narrative in which parents are victims of a covert institutional betrayal.
This move also relies heavily on the hot appeal fallacy to bypass critical reasoning and inflame a sense of moral urgency. By using words like “stung,” “pitting,” and “dissolution,” Blaff’s language evokes pain, fragmentation, and loss, inviting readers to respond not with inquiry but with outrage. In doing so, the article helps construct a narrative in which the ‘parental rights’ movement is a necessary corrective to an overreaching state—where schools, rather than supporting youth, are framed as hostile agents that corrupt, confuse, or conceal. The implication is not just that public education has overstepped, but that it has violated a sacred boundary: the rightful dominion of the parent over the child.
This rhetorical pattern reinforces what Butler (2024) and Seymour (2024) describe as a neoconservative/neoliberal moral order, in which gender diversity is not simply unfamiliar but threatening to the imagined sanctity of the nuclear family. It teaches readers to distrust institutions that offer care and affirmation outside the home, and to see such interventions as acts of ideological warfare rather than of educational support.
“Biological daughter”
An unsettling rhetorical trend in Blaff’s article is the repeated refusal to use the child’s affirmed name or pronouns. Instead, Blaff relies on the term “biological daughter” and consistently uses the child’s deadname throughout. This deliberate linguistic choice does more than misgender, it functions to deny the child’s subjectivity altogether. By centering assigned sex at birth and erasing the child’s self-identification, the article invokes a logic in which identity is fixed, external, and biologically determined.
This rhetoric carries two significant implications. First, it dehumanizes: referring to someone primarily through biological classification and without personal agency reduces them to a body rather than recognizing them as a person. Second, it constructs the child not as an autonomous being but as a possession, implicitly reinforcing the idea that parents have not only legal authority but existential ownership over their children’s identities. The repeated use of the deadname signals to the reader that the child’s chosen identity is invalid, a betrayal of some imagined biological truth.
This directly relates to Butler’s (2006) notion of performativity; the way naming practices can reinforce normative power structures and render nonconforming identities unintelligible. The performative nature of gender and sexuality is further highlighted in Blaff’s commentary on generational shifts in queer youth identity: “Something has shifted in the past 50 years. Two generations ago, many gay and lesbian children feared their parents rejecting them and went to great lengths to avoid disappointing them by staying closeted. They craved parental acceptance.”
On the surface, this statement may appear sympathetic. But rhetorically, it functions to reintroduce shame as a disciplinary mechanism. By romanticizing an era in which queerness was hidden out of fear of disappointing one’s parents, Blaff somehow positions parental rejection not as a problem, but as a normative and even moral reaction, something that once kept queer children in line.
This nostalgic framing reasserts heteronormativity by casting past repression as a preferable alternative to present-day visibility. The implication is that shame once served a socially cohesive function, maintaining the primacy of the nuclear family and parental control. In contrast, contemporary existence of queer identity, particularly those that receive institutional support, are portrayed as a moral contagion.
The crusader
The second article, “Catholic board wants to ostracize Christian teen. He wants to go to class” by Higgins (2023), exemplifies the contradictions and hypocrisies embedded within the ‘parental rights’ movement—particularly in how it selectively invokes parental authority. While this movement is framed as a defense of parental control over their children’s education and values, this article reveals how that control is conditional, wielded only when it aligns with dominant ideologies, particularly conservative Christian values.
The article centres on a teenage student who was suspended for making anti-trans comments in class. “’And I simply said you can identify as you please, but the fact of the matter is God created male and female,’ said Josh in an interview. ‘That was considered bullying,’” (Higgins, 2024). The article frames the student as a martyr for truth and tradition, ignoring the harmful rhetoric in his language. His invocation of divine authority over gender is presented as common sense rather than exclusionary rhetoric that undermines human rights. This is yet another instance of “of course” language, in which ideological beliefs masquerade as neutral or self-evident truths.
Higgins writes that the student “gained a victory when the court ruled he had withdrawn from parental control, was, in effect, an independent adult, and could, therefore, appeal the disciplinary notices himself.” This directly contradicts the earlier article’s message that children are under full parental control. Here, Josh is allowed to act independently. The rules seem to change depending on whose story is being told and which values they uphold.
In this moment, parental control, so fiercely defended in the previous article’s contexts, is casually ignored to bolster the image of a rugged individual, a truth-speaking crusader. The ‘parental rights’ movement, in this instance, becomes less about the sanctity of family governance and more about legitimizing a specific set of values through whichever rhetorical or legal mechanism is most effective.
This contradiction becomes even more apparent as Higgins quotes Hooper, who stated, “I do not believe a court has the right to overrule the manner in which a family decides to structure itself, just because it is outside the norm.” While framed as a defense of family autonomy, this logic does not extend to affirming families of queer or trans youth. Rather, it operates selectively, protecting only those family structures and values that conform to neoconservative norms. The argument of state control of autonomy is defended in this case, and yet it is denied to families who affirm queer or trans children.
Thus, the article reveals how the ‘parental rights’ movement is not about consistent advocacy for parental control or child autonomy, it is about policing which values are permitted in public spaces. When a queer or trans child asserts independence from their parents, it is framed as indoctrination or rebellion. When a conservative child asserts independence from their school and advocates for legal autonomy apart from their parents, it is framed as a heroic act of resistance.
Conclusion
The ‘parental rights’ movement reveals itself not as advocacy for parental involvement, but as a strategic discourse that seeks to restore neoconservative/neoliberal dominance. Through the repetition of “of course” language, appeals to emotion, and the weaponization of gender as the enemy, gender-diverse identities are framed as existential threats to children, the family unit and social order. These rhetorical moves are not accidental, they are part of a larger restoration project that seeks to reassert control over public education by filtering it through private, often religious or moralistic, values. As demonstrated through the articles analyzed, this movement inconsistently applies the very logic it claims to defend: parental authority is championed when it supports dominant ideology, but inconsequential if the child is pursuing to reinforce neoconservative hegemony.
This selective advocacy exposes the ‘parental rights’ movement as a Trojan horse for the erosion of public education’s democratic aims. It replaces collective responsibility with individualized morality and reframes education as a battleground for ideological purity rather than a space for equity and inquiry. If language shapes what is understanding and belief, then it must also be interrogated, challenged, and corrected.
References
Butler, J. (2006) Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
Butler, J. (2024). Who’s Afraid of Gender. Alfred A. Knopf Canada.
Fowler, M. M., & Mountz, S. (2024). Discipline, Erasure, and Silenced Subjectivities: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Florida’s 2022 Parental Rights in Education Act. Affilia.
Montell, A. (2021). Cultish. Harper Wave.
Seymour, R. (2024). Disaster nationalism: The downfall of liberal civilization. Verso.
