Relying on the Supreme Court’s recent Mirabelli ruling, the appeals court blocked key parts of AB 1955 and reaffirmed that fit parents cannot be shut out of decisions involving their child’s mental health.
UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a preliminary injunction against some sections of California’s SAFETY Act, which prohibited schools and teachers from disclosing a student’s gender identity to parents without the student’s clear consent.
The decision is the latest court ruling blocking the California law, also known as Assembly Bill 1955, which was passed by California Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, in 2024. This past March, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Christian parents in the case of Mirabelli v. Bonta that California’s gender transition secrecy law violated their religious liberty rights and due process rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
In the case before the Ninth Circuit, a second group of California parents, along with the City of Huntington Beach, challenged the law specifically under the 14th Amendment, which protects the right of all parents, religious or not, to make medical decisions on behalf of their child, including social transitions. In agreeing with the plaintiffs, the Ninth Circuit relied heavily on the findings in Mirabella, which held “that the substantive due process right of parents ‘to direct the upbringing and education of their children’ ‘includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.’” That includes the right to be told whether ‘a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school.’”
The Ninth Circuit’s injunction is a massive win in the ongoing fight over parental rights, with the court noting that its decision to block the law “promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a role in some of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.”
Nick Barry, senior counsel at America First Legal, which represented the plaintiffs, summed up the court’s decision by stating,
“California cannot use state law to force schoolteachers and administrators into a conspiracy of silence against parents. California’s law, and similar school policies, use state coercion to intentionally interfere with the parent-child relationship and separate a child from their parent. That is wrong and unlawful. The Constitution is clear — parents have the right to know what is happening with their children and make decisions regarding their mental health, and no state law can override that fundamental protection.”
This is the latest win against school policies that have attempted to elevate LGBTQ ideology over parental rights. In February, for example, religious parents won a massive victory when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that schools must allow parents to opt their children out of LGBTQ readings and lessons that violate their deeply held beliefs.
For Christians, these court wins follow the fundamental biblical principle that parents, not schools and other governmental institutions, have the primary responsibility for nurturing and guiding their children, a principle that has been consistently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in such landmark cases as Meyer v. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, and Yoder v. Wisconsin.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
California Schemin’: New Law Requires Schools and Teachers to Hide Students’ Gender Confusion from Parents
{Published on 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 Liberty Justice Center announced that it would file a lawsuit seeking to 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, Liberty Justice Center filed its 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.
Parents should never be treated as outsiders in their own children’s lives. Your tax-deductible gift helps the Standing for Freedom Center expose government overreach, defend the family, and equip believers to stand for truth with courage, clarity, and grace.
