A district court blocked California’s new law before the Ninth Circuit reversed it, so the plaintiffs have now filed an emergency appeal asking the High Court to again block schools from lying to parents about their children.
[UPDATE] Thomas More Society has filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court on behalf of its clients, California teachers and parents, to block state law that requires teachers to hide students’ gender confusion from their parents.
The appeal was filed on January 8 after a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed an injunction blocking the laws.
Paul M. Jonna, special counsel for Thomas More Society and a partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, argued,
“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately. The state is inserting itself unconstitutionally between parents and children, forcing schools to deceive families, and punishing teachers who tell the truth.”
In 2024, California the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, a law that banned school districts from putting any policies in place that required teachers to inform parents of their child’s desire to go by a new name or pronouns. As a result of the law, the California Department of Education now instructs schools to bar teachers from disclosing a child’s gender confusion or social transition to their parents.
Many school districts had adopted this policy even before the law passed. In 2023, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West filed suit against the Escondido Unified School District’s (EUSD’s) policy requiring teachers to hide a child’s gender dysphoria from parents. The school district not only lied to parents but aided children in transitioning, instructing teachers to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns and allowing them to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Benitez blocked EUSD’s policy as unconstitutional in September 2023 and ordered that the district reinstate the teachers who had been placed on leave.
After the new state law was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, both teachers, as well as several parents who joined the effort, filed a class-action suit challenging California’s Parental Exclusion Policies.
The suit, known as Mirabelli v. Bonta, also appeared before Benitez, who issued a ruling granting a permanent statewise injunction against California’s new law in December.
Benitez ruled that California was violating parents’ constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their children, their right to the free exercise of religion, and the religious liberty and free speech rights of teachers.
Of the policies, he wrote,
“They harm the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure or a fleeting impulse.”
He added that they “harm the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs. And finally, they harm teachers who are compelled to violate the sincerely held beliefs and the parent’s rights by forcing them to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students.”
Benitez then blocked the state from enforcing the law.
However, California appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit, where a three-judge panel stayed the injunction.
The panel ruled that Benitez’s injunction was too broad and vague.
They argued that because the state has a provision in the law which in some circumstances would permit schools to tell parents about their child’s gender incongruence, it does not violate parents and teachers’ rights.
California allows schools, at their discretion, to disclose a child’s gender issues in “compelling” circumstances, though what is considered compelling is not clear and many schools refuse to disclose such information no matter how critical.
For example, two of the parent plaintiffs, listed in the case as John and Jane Poe, claim they were not told their daughter assumed a male identity at school for over a year. They discovered this only after their daughter attempted suicide. They transferred her to another school and requested that they be notified of how she identifies at school and what pronouns she uses. The school has refused, citing the state’s policy.
Nonetheless, the panel deemed the exception sufficient.
Following the stay of the injunction, the Thomas More Society requested an emergency appearance before the Supreme Court, as well as an en banc hearing by the full Ninth Circuit.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
California Schemin’: New Law Requires Schools and Teachers to Hide Students’ Gender Confusion from Parents
{Published July 17, 2024} In a move that has been characterized as “unconstitutional” and “anti-family,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, signed a law on Monday that bans school districts from passing any policies that require officials and teachers to inform parents if their child exhibits gender confusion.
This includes if a child is using a different name or pronouns or is using the bathroom of the opposite sex.
The law is the first of its kind in the United States, and legal experts and critics say it undermines the established constitutional and natural right of parents to have the information necessary to make decisions related to their child’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
AB 1955, also known as the SAFETY ACT, was introduced largely because some California school districts have implemented a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” requiring parental notification if their child identifies as transgender at school.
The new law overrides those policies. It also requires schools to develop and provide resources to encourage parents to accept their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The legislation has been highly controversial. Two lawmakers nearly came to blows during a debate in the State Assembly in June, and the California Family Council filed a lawsuit seeking the block the bill before it became law. As a result, many expected that Newsom would veto the bill.
When he suddenly signed it, the fallout was swift.
In the most high-profile consequence, Elon Musk announced shortly thereafter that he will move the headquarters of both Space-X and X (formerly Twitter) from San Francisco to Austin, Texas, calling Newsom’s decision to sign the new law as “the final straw.”
In a second post, Musk explained, “I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”
Journalist Michael Shellenberger, in a lengthy post that has already garnered more than 23 million views, warned that the law “puts 10 million children and adolescents in grave danger of medical mistreatment.”
Parental rights and legal advocates stated that the law puts the state in charge of children rather than parents.
Late Tuesday, the Liberty Justice Center became the first to file an official lawsuit challenging the law. The suit is on behalf of several parents and Chino Valley Unified School District, which implemented a parental notification policy a year ago. In a press release, senior counsel Emily Rae stated,
“School officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents, but parents do have a constitutional right to know what their minor children are doing at school. Parents are the legal guardians of their children, not Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, or Superintendent Thurmond.”
In Orwellian fashion, Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, responded to the bill’s critics by claiming that the law actually promotes parental rights.
“This law helps keep children safe while protecting the critical role of parents,” he said. “It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations.
AB 1955 was introduced by Assemblymember Christopher Ward, who is gay.
Ward stated, “I know what it’s like to face coming out, I know what it’s like to have others target you, question you, or deny you.”
Ward asserts that LGBT children are under “attack” and that they should be able to decide if they tell their parents.
“Politically motivated attacks on the rights, safety, and dignity of transgender, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ youth are on the rise nationwide, including in California,” Ward said. “As a parent, I urge all parents to talk to their children, listen to them, and love them unconditionally for who they are.”
LGBTQ proponents say the law protects the privacy of youth and protects them from being “outed” without their consent.
Lakeside Union School District was one of the school districts that has put a “Parents Bill of Rights” in place. School board president Andrew Hayes responded to the new law by saying,
“AB 1955 does not change the fact that parents have a fundamental right to be involved in their kids’ education which is the focus of the Parents Bill of Rights. While Sacramento politicians are working overtime to keep secrets from parents about their minor children and avoiding transparency in our kids’ classrooms, I’m committed to fighting for common sense and safeguarding the rights of parents to play an active role in shaping their children’s educational experiences. I’ll ensure that work will continue in Lakeside with the important transparency provisions of our Parents Bill of Rights related to student mental health, student safety, and student achievement.”
One thing that needs to be clear is that schools like Lakeside Union began putting parents’ bill of rights in place after reports of other schools hiding children’s gender incongruence swept the nation. Schools that respect parental rights and child safety didn’t start this battle, the left did.
Many schools in California have gone so far as to put children who express confusion about their sex on gender transition plans.
In other words, most schools weren’t just staying out of this issue. They were, and are, intentionally blocking parents from knowing about a crucial facet of their child’s health and grooming them to get on the path to not just social transition but also medical transition.
One such policy was blocked by a federal judge last September wherein Escondido Union School District threatened to punish any teacher who “outed” a transgender identifying child to their parents without the child’s express permission.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Benitez found nothing compelling in the school’s defense and labeled their policy “a trifecta of harm” against children, parents, and teachers.
As part of his ruling, he brought attention to numerous Supreme Court and lower court rulings that affirmed the rights of parents to make decisions regarding a child’s education and medical treatment.
Most notably, he cited the 1979 case Parham v. J.R., which says,
“…our constitutional system long ago rejected any notion that a child is ‘the mere creature of the State’ and, on the contrary, asserted that parents generally ‘have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare their children for additional obligations.’…[t]he law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions. More important, historically it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children….The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.”
Benitez explained that the Supreme Court also held that parents’ caretaking role means that they have the absolute legal right to override a child’s wishes regarding medical treatment . Parham v. J.R. clearly states:
“Simply because the decision of a parent is not agreeable to a child or because it involves risks does not automatically transfer the power to make that decision from the parents to some agency or officer of the state. The same characterizations can be made for a tonsillectomy, appendectomy, or other medical procedure. Most children, even in adolescence, simply are not able to make sound judgments concerning many decisions, including their need for medical care or treatment. Parents can and must make those judgments.”
To this, Benitez added his own ruling, finding that the “policy of elevating a child’s gender-related choices to that of paramount importance, while excluding a parent from knowing of, or participating in, that kind of choice, is as foreign to federal constitutional and statutory law as it is medically unwise.”
Now, the State of California has elevated this same “foreign” and “unwise” policy into state law, holding parents and children hostage to a pseudoscientific, ideology that not only pushes children to question their identity but also harms the sacred trust and bond between parent and child.
Society once recognized that any individual or organization that told a child to keep a secret from their parents was likely up to no good. Now such secrecy is codified and protected.
This new law will likely be overturned by the courts, according to Kristen Waggoner, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, who called the law “painfully unconstitutional,” but since schools and teachers are already hiding information from parents, they must act to protect their children now.
The harms are very real. Citing the findings from the recent Cass Report, Shellenberger noted that even the seemingly benign social transition of using a different name and pronouns “is not a neutral act and has psychological consequences. This means it is the first step toward medical intervention. What Gavin Newsom has done is actively prevented schools from informing parents that their children have been put on a medical pathway.”
And once children get on a medical pathway of drugs and surgeries, the harms are severe and irreversible.
As the primary caretaker, parents must take steps to protect their children. Get your children out of public schools, if at all possible, and into homeschool or a sane private school.
Those who can’t manage that should limit and monitor their children’s social media use, encourage them to be honest with you about everything that’s happening at school and with their friends, get them involved in healthy activities (especially church), and make it a point to learn everything possible about who is teaching your child and what they are teaching them.
Finally, recognize that you are in a battle with the state and left-wing activists over your children. Don’t let them win. God gave your kids to you, not the government.
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