There was a popular show on television for a while starring Danny DeVito called “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” As time goes by, I’ve increasingly come to think that someone should make a new version of this, but replace the word “sunny.” (I’ll try to remain polite and not offer my own replacement suggestion here.) Yet another news item has been tossed over the transom from the City of Brotherly Love this week to further encourage such thinking. It turns out that the Philadelphia public school system has instituted more changes, not to their curriculum (though they’ve done that as well), but to their administrative handling of the students. Starting this week, students have been able to download and fill out a form declaring their gender of preference or, alternately, “non-binary” if they don’t care for either of the two default choices. They then submit the form and the school makes the change on all of their records without question. And there is no mechanism to check with the parents or guardians of the students unless the child deigns to tell them themself. (Daily Wire)

The School District of Philadelphia is allowing students to identify as “non-binary,” giving students themselves control over their gender identity.

6ABC Philadelphia reports that the new district policy, which took effect Monday, provides students who identify as “non-binary” the opportunity to change their gender identity by filling out a form declaring their stated gender and submitting it.

“It really is as simple as downloading the form and then identifying with whichever gender, whether it’s male, female or the non-binary option,” said School District of Philadelphia spokeswoman Monica Lewis.

The new selection is incorporated into all school record systems, including their report cards. There is no requirement for the student to provide any sort of outside legal documentation showing that such a change has been made.

An immediate sticking point arises with the fact that the gender change is not reflected in the state Department of Education records. State law requires that the student’s gender match that shown on their birth certificates. So what happens when these kids graduate and need to submit their records for applications to college or the military and the mismatch shows up? Will the receiving system reject the records because of the error? I can think of any number of instances where government forms need to be filled out and they need to be exact matches of any related documents or the system can throw you into a serious predicament.

But all of those questions are strictly administrative. The far bigger issue to address is how and why this can all be done on behalf of a minor without consulting a parent or guardian? Doesn’t that seem like a pretty big deal that the parents would want to be in the loop on? Whether they approve or disapprove of such a choice, the parents need to know when something this dramatic is going on in the child’s life, right? I’m sure some of the children will inform their parents, but not all of them. Imagine the surprise the parents will receive when they show up for graduation.

This is madness driven by the progressive narrative that’s being force-fed to everyone around the country and amplified by most of our media outlets. But then, Philadelphia has turned into a city of madness in recent years. We spend a fair amount of time here discussing the craziness that has overtaken places such as Baltimore, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco. (Just to name a few.) But Philadelphia may turn out to be the sleeper candidate that tops them all. And it’s suffering from the same anti-police hysteria and resultant explosion in crime rates that most of those other cities have seen as well.

At the same time, Philadelphia has announced that they will be returning to a system of mandatory immunity passports for indoor dining anywhere in the city starting on January 3rd. That may put a real damper on all of the “re-gender reveal” parties that parents are probably going to be planning.