Ollie Mead-Ramayya is still having trouble comprehending the province's new policy putting parents in control of what pronouns or names their kids go by at school.
"I think it's going to ruin a lot of people's lives, and it would have ruined my life a year ago," Mead-Ramayya said.
"It's going to out so many people to their parents -- a lot of homophobic parents, a lot of not supportive parents. I was lucky, but there are a lot of people that are not going to be lucky."
The new policy announced last week requires students under 16 to have parental permission to change preferred names and pronouns at school.
Parents must also be informed about any sexual health education and will now have the option of opting their children out of sex-ed.
Mead-Ramayya says he came out to her mom five months ago and was very secretive about telling her until that point.
"If anyone had told her without me wanting to tell her, it would have completely ruined me," Mead-Ramayya said.
Peter Garden's child is transgender. While the entire family is supportive, he says his son began the process of coming to his own identity at school with friends and teachers. He feels taking away that safe space could be dangerous.
"Those kids are going to continue to explore, but they're not going to have that sort of safety of being at school and being able to talk about it," he said.
"And that's really important. That's really dangerous when those kids don't have that because it impacts their mental health."
Teresa Mead is concerned about how the policy could affect the mental health of children put in an awkward position.
"Trans kids are at a heightened risk for suicide and self-harm. So it's very distressing," she said.
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"For those children that are not out yet, they're just not going to come out. This is going to delay them coming out."
Premier Scott Moe doubled down on implementing the new policy over the weekend.
In a social media post, he said the policy has been received positively from people he's spoken to.
"I believe the leading experts in children's upbringing are their parents," the post said.
Moe also cited a new Angus Reid Institute survey which showed the majority of respondents in Saskatchewan said parents should be informed about pronoun changes. However, the poll was nearly split down the middle on the question of whether parental consent should be required.
