In this new school year, many parents are being forced (or will be forced) to confront an issue that’s gaining traction and is miles away from traditional concerns of the past, such as good study habits, fun extracurricular activities, and the like.

Instead, the parents of “trans-identifying” youth — plus the young people themselves and aggressive activists — are pushing elementary, middle, and high schools to embrace sexually integrated transgender restrooms and locker rooms. It’s a social construct from the far Left that makes many people in America uncomfortable.

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“These parents [of trans-identifying youth] are making the presumptuous request for all children to be forced to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers,” Laurie Higgins, a cultural affairs writer for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) in Tinley Park, Illinois, told LifeZette. Higgins has addressed cultural issues for over 10 years and has spoken at events hosted by the Council for National Policy in Washington, D.C.

School boards and administrations are acquiescing to the requests by trans families — some because they’ve accepted cultural assumptions and others out of fear of lawsuits, explained Higgins.

Most school board members and administrators are ignorant of the possible causes of sexual confusion and bodily alienation, which may include family dysfunction, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment, she said.

“Additionally, they’re unaware of the phenomenon called ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria,'” she explained.

A recent study by Dr. Lisa Littman, a physician and associate professor of the Practice of Behavioral Sciences at Brown University, sheds light on this troubling phenomenon. “The onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe,” the research abstract reads. (As an ironic aside, Brown University has now taken Littman’s research off its website out of concerns it may upset the trans community.)

“Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity,” the study also said.

Related: The Gender Identity Crisis for Today’s Children

This is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Higgins.

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Transgenderism is a complex matter. Yet many school administrators and school board members are rushing to push policies based on a statistically insignificant number of transgender students at the expense of the majority.

Though there are no federal data collected on the number of transgender students, an estimated 0.7 percent of youth ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender in the United States, according to a 2017 study released by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Parents should not sit idly by about all of this. There are proactive steps parents and guardians can and should take for their children’s safety and well-being.

“Parents should ask not just about policies but practices as well, because some schools are changing practices without formally establishing policies, which would entail school board involvement and increases the likelihood that the public will become aware of what is taking place,” emphasized Higgins.

“We have heard of more than one school that has begun allowing gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex spaces without notifying parents.”

Parents can also make the point, she said, that the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy is the physical embodiment of what it means to be “male” or “female.”

Moms and dads should explain to administrators that they feel that restroom-usage should correspond to objective, immutable biological sex — “rather than subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex,” continued Higgins.

Parents can also make the point, she said, that the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy is the physical embodiment of what it means to be “male” or “female.”

“If administrators are intransigent, parents should ask questions,” urged Higgins. And parents need to remember that they have rights inside the school and will need to speak up so administrators are aware of their concerns.

Higgins shared with LifeZette these common-sense questions for parents to ask administrators:

1.) Why should girls be expected to be comfortable with a boy in their restroom merely because he wishes he were a girl?

2.) Why should a boy’s subjective feelings about his objective sex affect girls’ feelings or beliefs about engaging in bodily functions near him?

3.) If gender-dysphoric students shouldn’t have to use private facilities with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, why should nongender-dysphoric students have to use private facilities with those whose sex they don’t share?

4.) If it’s hateful for girls to say they want to share restrooms and locker rooms with only girls, why isn’t it hateful for gender-dysphoric boys to say they want to share those facilities with only girls?

5.) Why is it hateful to believe that locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to one’s objective sex but “loving” to believe they should correspond to subjective feelings about one’s sex?

6.) If restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy for students to use facilities with those whose sex they don’t share, why don’t restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy for a gender-dysphoric student to share facilities with those whose gender identity they don’t share — but whose sex they do share?

Related: Are Kids in the U.K. Being Misdiagnosed as Transgender — When They’re Autistic?

7.) If restroom stalls and changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow a gender-dysphoric male student in the girls’ facilities, why don’t stalls and changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow all male students in the girls’ facilities?

8.) If restroom stalls provide sufficient privacy to allow an objectively male student in girls’ restrooms, should schools allow all male staff and faculty in the women’s staff restrooms that are equipped with multiple stalls?

By middle school, noted Higgins, parents need to have in-depth discussions with their children about gender dysphoria, “making clear that the dominant cultural view is biased, wrong and destructive.”

“Unfortunately, even parents of children in K-5 must have these age-inappropriate discussions, if there’s a cross-dressing student in their elementary school,” she said — in that case, parents can tell school administrators and teachers that their child will not be referring to a cross-dressing peer by incorrect pronouns.

“Public school accommodation of gender-dysphoric students through restroom, locker room, and language changes puts kids in a terrible position,” said Higgins. “Schools and the culture at large can very easily make them feel ashamed of their feelings and their moral convictions about both modesty and privacy.”

Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.