lawsuit filed<\/a> in April 2023 by two now-former Escondido Union School District teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West. Citing their Christian faith, the two challenged their district\u2019s policy barring school employees from telling parents about a student\u2019s transgender status without the student\u2019s consent, arguing it violated their First Amendment rights.<\/p>\nThe case has primarily been defended by the state, since Escondido based its policy off state guidance. The district has since changed its policy\u00a0because of the litigation and no longer bars parental notification.<\/p>\n
In granting the plaintiffs\u2019 motion for summary judgment, Benitez wrote that it\u2019s wrong to deprive parents of significant information that may affect their child\u2019s well-being and health. He also said the First Amendment protects teachers\u2019 right to inform them.<\/p>\n
Throughout his ruling, Benitez repeatedly invoked the Supreme Court\u2019s decision earlier this year in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which the justices sided with religious parents who wanted to opt their children out of reading books with LGBTQ+ content in public schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal,\u201d a spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2019s office said in an email Tuesday. \u201cWe are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teachers\u2019 attorney Paul Jonna, special counsel with the conservative law firm the Thomas More Society, applauded the ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s incredible victory finally, and permanently, ends California\u2019s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThe Court\u2019s comprehensive ruling \u2014 granting summary judgment on all claims \u2014 protects all California parents, students, and teachers, and it restores sanity and common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Equality California called the decision dangerous, saying it broadly targets multiple state laws and protections for transgender and gender-nonconforming students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese protections exist for one reason: to keep students safe and ensure schools remain places where young people can learn and thrive without fear,\u201d said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang in a statement.<\/p>\n
State officials have argued that telling parents of possible changes to their child\u2019s gender without the student\u2019s permission would violate trust between students and teachers that is needed for a safe learning environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fear of nonconsensual disclosure can not only harm a student academically, but disincentivizes the type of open communication that allows the student to report instances of harm, bullying, or depression,\u201d state attorneys said in their stay request.<\/p>\n
State attorneys have also argued that outing a student to parents could put them at risk of abuse.<\/p>\n
But Benitez wrote that it\u2019s wrong to assume that and said most parents want the best for their children. He suggested that being transgender involves health problems, such as mental health issues, and parents need to be able to seek medical care for their child.<\/p>\n
His ruling cited testimony from Erica Anderson, a psychologist known for being critical of the number of young people identifying as transgender and saying they should not transition without their parents\u2019 support.<\/p>\n
In his ruling, Benitez also described having a transgender child as harmful to parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difficult and long-lasting issues of gender nonconformity leave parents to suffer adverse consequences over a lifetime. The State Defendants \u2026 will not be exposed to a lifetime of a student\u2019s mental health issues. Instead, that will be the parents\u2019 grief to bear alone,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Hoang, of Equality California, said that parents should be involved in their children\u2019s lives but such conversations about a child\u2019s gender identity should happen when families are ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia\u2019s student protections recognize the importance of family involvement, while also acknowledging that forcing a student to come out before they are ready can cause harm,\u201d Hoang said.<\/p>\n
Since the former Escondido teachers filed their lawsuit in 2023, the state education department has backtracked on its policy regarding notifying parents.<\/p>\n
The agency used to say on its website that public school employees must not tell parents or others about a student\u2019s transgender status without the student\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n
It removed that guidance this year following a new state law, AB 1955, that bars schools from requiring staff to notify parents about a student\u2019s gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation without the student\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n
That law does not go as far as to say that school employees must not tell parents. It only prohibits schools from requiring employees to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents have a constitutional right to be informed if their child starts to present as a different gender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1312,15,181,23,100,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-107279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news","16":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}