A 12 year-old in Texas, born male, decided to transition and live as “Maddie.” Unsurprisingly, this led to bullying at school. What made this story unique was that parents of children at Maddie’s school were bullying the student as much as the peers — online and in person. The bullying got so bad that Maddie’s family may move.

Of course, bullying anyone is worthy of condemnation. Both the transgender bathroom issue and the bullying that often results in some parts of the country reveal a new and very specific problem: Kids are taking their transgender issues to school because that’s where they spend the majority of their time, which creates anxiety and fear in some parents and children. Yet school is not the appropriate place to resolve these issues. School should be a place for fun and learning. Schools have become a lab, mixing social and political experiments together, at great cost to taxpayers, families, and society.