Pennsylvania Social Workers Must Now Ask if Babies ‘Identify’ as ‘Nonbinary’

A new rule in Pennsylvania means that the state’s social workers are now required to ask whether children, including newborn babies, “identify” as “nonbinary.”

When social workers are assigned to a new case, the new requirement states that they must first establish whether the child or infant “identifies” as male, female, or “nonbinary.”

A government form, that social workers in Pennsylvania are now required to complete, was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“The state’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning, which funds health and social programs for young children, requires providers to report demographic information on their cases – including, since 2022, the gender identity of infants,” the outlet reported.

“Data collection forms for the agency now ask for newborns’ ‘gender’ rather than their sex and allow providers to select male, female, or ‘Gender Non-Binary.’”

The forms are used for home-visit programs, including cases that exclusively involve infants.

The Free Beacon noted one social worker explained, “I have to ask clients, ‘Is your 10-day-old male, female, or nonbinary?’”

Responding to the report, the state’s Department of Human Services “downplayed the requirements.”

The department’s spokesperson Ali Fogarty said in an email it’s just a data collation point and there’s no “expectation” that parents be asked the question.

The Free Beacon noted, “The questions, which were updated in August according to the forms, come amid mounting concerns that the rise in childhood gender dysphoria has been driven by social forces – including the push to teach young people about gender identity and the practice of ‘affirming’ children who identify as transgender.

“That practice is ‘not a neutral act,’ a review by England’s National Health Service concluded last year, but an ‘active intervention’ that can lock in trans identity, promoting the distress it’s meant to alleviate.”

Most studies show that most cases of children with gender dysphoria resolve themselves as they grow older if they are left alone.

“These questions plant the seed in parents,” the Pennsylvania social worker told the Free Beacon.