REVEALED: The Sun Belt cities where teachers don't tell parents their OWN KIDS are changing sex at school

Seven major school districts in New Mexico responsible for thousands of children have policies to help them change sex identity in class without their parents finding out, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Parents Defending Education (PDE), a conservative campaign group, uncovered details of the stealth transgender policies from public records requests.

The unearthed documents show how teachers are directed to help trans students change their names, pronouns, clothing, and sex identity at school, without their parents' knowledge.

Trans activists say such guidelines are vital, as some kids need protection from old-fashioned moms and dads who won't accept their desire to change sex.

But for many parents, they are dangerous, and could deny them a chance to help their children as they struggle to navigate puberty.

PDE's outreach director Erika Sanzi slammed the schools for 'indefensible and likely illegal' policies.

'Any time a school participates in or facilitates a student's transition, they are engaging in a psychosocial intervention that requires parental notification and consent,' Sanzi said.

'Federal law guarantees parents the right to view every record maintained by the district, and that includes gender support plans.'

The schools and New Mexico's Department of Education did not answer DailyMail.com's emails.

They are Los Alamos Public Schools, Rio Rancho Public Schools, Las Cruces Public Schools, Gallup-McKinley County Schools, Moriarty-Edgewood School District, Santa Fe Public Schools, and Gadsden Independent School District.

PDE will add them to its nationwide database of schools with secret trans policies.

It lists 18,658 schools across 1,062 districts that educate a staggering 10.9 million students.

New Mexico takes a relatively progressive approach to trans youth. 

LGBTQ youth are protected from discrimination and bullying, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Democratic Gov. Michelle Grisham last year signed a law to protect sex-change procedures in the state.

Santa Fe Public Schools, which covers some 28 institutions, has perhaps the starkest secret trans policy of the New Mexico schools.

The district's document urges teachers to 'MAINTAIN CONFIDENTIALITY — THIS IS CRITICAL.'

'Do NOT share the student's transgender status with anyone else,' says the internal guide. 

'This is HIGHLY confidential information.'

Parents do not need to be informed about a trans child unless a 'student wishes to change their name and/or gender marker' in the school's database, the policy states.

Likewise, Moriarty-Edgewood School District's eight institutions in Torrance County guide teachers on handling trans and non-binary students.

Teachers must find out if students 'feel safe' and whether their 'parents know' about their sex change.

They are guided to set up group meetings about the sex change.

When parents 'do not know' about the change, only a counselor is involved, the papers show.

The released documents include materials used to teach kids about new-wave gender ideology.

They feature the 'Gender Unicorn,' which dispenses with traditional notions of biological sex and presents 'gender identity' as fluid.

Similarly, the 'Genderbread Person' teaches youngsters about the intersex and 'genderqueers.'

'Gender and sexuality are part of a spectrum,' says the document.

'We all hold characteristics that defy heteronormativity.'

An educational cartoon video from AMAZE depicts a child teaching her older uncle that gender now exists on a spectrum

For many parents, this is a rapid and challenging departure from long-held understandings of people being biologically either male or female.

Such concerns were not confined to New Mexico.

A group of parents this week protested a gender support policy at Eau Claire Area School District in Wisconsin.

They asked the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to rule on the trans policies affecting their children.

A lawsuit, from a group called Parents Protecting Our Children, says the district gender support plan violates their constitutional rights by keeping them in the dark about at-school sex changes.

They want the high court to reverse the dismissal of their 2022 case by a lower court in March, after judges there ruled that the parents and children had not been directly harmed by the policy.

Nicholas Barry, a lawyer from America First Legal, the conservative campaign group that filed the papers, said the top court 'should step in and protect parental rights.'

'The idea that a parent is not injured when a government official has the authority through a written policy to socially transition a child to another sex, and hide it from parents, is simply disconnected from reality,' Barry said.

Schools are under pressure to assist trans students in a fractious political environment, where gender and sex have become a frontline in the culture wars between progressives and conservatives.

School administrators have said they want to involve parents, but must follow a patchwork of federal and state guidelines designed to protect students' privacy, fight discrimination and welcome all comers.

Such cases are becoming more common as teachers grapple with the small-but-growing number of children wanting to change gender at school, and the especially tricky ones who don't want their parents to know about it.

Against this backdrop, parents, kids, teachers, and therapists have to make tough calls about rising rates of transgenderism, mental health issues, peer pressure and whether affirmation-on-demand is always the best answer.

The number of transgender children between the ages of 13 to 17 has doubled to about 1.4 percent, an analysis of government health surveys show.

There's been similar rises in teens seeking puberty blockers, hormones and surgery, insurance data reveal.

Advocates of 'gender-affirming care', as it is known, attribute the rise to more awareness of gender dysphoria and support among clinicians.

Other experts, conservatives and parents warn of an ideologically-driven 'social contagion'.

Disagreements over notifying parents take place alongside debates on whether trans teens can use the school restrooms and compete in sports aligned with their gender identities.

Again, the rules vary by state, and often end up in courts.

DailyMail.com has spoken with several parents of trans-identifying kids. Many worry that their offspring were influenced to transition by classmates, TikTok influencers, or teachers and school counselors with a drum to beat.

Some do not believe their kids are truly transgender and aim to defer such irreversible steps as puberty blockers or surgery. Many said their child instead had mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and autism.