Federal appellate judges pushed back Monday against a lawyer who was defending a Maryland school district’s guidelines that bars disclosing a student’s gender identity to their parents in some situations.

A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit seemed deeply skeptical of arguments from the Montgomery County Board of Education that parents can’t sue over the district’s guidelines that allow transgender and gender nonconforming students to develop a “gender support plan” without informing their parents. The policy is meant to promote the safety of students whose families may be unsupportive of their decision and to avoid familial conflict.