NORWOOD – The town’s kindergarten registration form has become the center of a heated debate after parents noticed new questions regarding gender identity and pronoun preferences for five-year-old’s.
The digital enrollment process for the Willett Early Childhood Center, includes a section asking parents to define their child’s gender identity and preferred pronouns. According to the form, parents are presented with three gender categories: Male, Female, and Nonbinary.
The registration also provides a list of nine different pronoun sets for the young students. While traditional options like “he/him” and “she/her” are included, the list also features gender-neutral and neo-pronoun options, such as “they/them,” “any/all,” and “ze/zir.”
The controversy gained momentum this past Thursday after an image of the registration page was circulated locally on social media and then gained national exposure by the influential account “Libs of TikTok.”
These posts drew thousands of comments from both critics and supporters. However, most of the local discussion criticized the inclusion of such language for children who were entering kindergarten.
Norwood was just the latest example of the shifting legal and political landscape regarding gender identity in education. Nationally, the Trump administration has issued executive orders aiming to curb gender identity policies in schools, threatening to withhold federal funding from institutions that use preferred pronouns without parental consent. However, in Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Campbell has publicly supported legal efforts to block those federal mandates.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) provides guidance stating that schools should only collect gender-related data “when necessary,” but the state does not currently mandate specific language for local registration forms.
The registration period for the Willett Early Childhood Center, which requires students to be five years old by August 31, has since concluded on February 27.
Norwood Public Schools has not issued an official statement regarding parents’ concerns about the specific wording of the form. -RD
