{"id":202476,"date":"2026-03-03T17:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202476\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:46:08","slug":"supreme-court-sides-with-california-parents-in-gender-identity-case-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202476\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Sides with California Parents in Gender Identity Case \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory Monday to those who argue that schools should inform parents if their child changes their gender identity, even without the student\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n

In the California case, Mirabelli v. Bonta<\/a>, the conservative justices reinstated a December district court decision that temporarily blocked schools from keeping such information private or from changing names and pronouns when parents say it violates their religious beliefs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had granted Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2019s request for an emergency stay while the district court hears the case, and Monday\u2019s order overruled that stay.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court relied on last year\u2019s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, <\/a>in which the justices sided with religious parents who wanted to opt their elementary school children out of lessons related to LGBTQ-themed storybooks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia\u2019s policies will likely not survive the strict scrutiny that Mahmoud demands,\u201c the order said, adding that \u201cparents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed\u201d at the district court level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Referencing one of the families in the case, they wrote: \u201cAt the beginning of their daughter\u2019s eighth-grade year, she attempted suicide and was hospitalized. Only then did her parents learn from a doctor that she had gender dysphoria and had been presenting as a boy at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

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RelatedEd. Dept. Says California Violated Law by Concealing Students\u2019 Gender Identity<\/p>\n

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U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon praised the decision. \u201cHuge win for parental rights in education!\u201d she posted<\/a> on X. The administration agrees with many conservative groups that schools have kept parents in the dark about their children\u2019s social transition and should proactively notify them when their child asks to use different pronouns or bathrooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez\u2019s temporary injunction said that California schools can\u2019t mislead parents about their children\u2019s gender identity and must prominently display wording that says parents \u201chave a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bonta has argued that the state\u2019s policies, including a 2024 law barring districts from forcing teachers to \u201cout\u201d students, don\u2019t prevent schools from sharing information with parents. But he said Benitez\u2019s blanket ruling \u2014 and the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to keep it in place \u2014 puts students at risk if they\u2019re not ready to disclose their gender identity. Advocates for LGBTQ students agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn its rush to expand religious influence in public schools, the Supreme Court prioritized religious exemptions over children\u2019s success and well-being and trampled on the rights and futures of transgender students without considering the full facts of the case,\u201d Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women\u2019s Law Center, said in a statement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The court is impatient\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the same point that Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberals on the court, made in her dissent, which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. Kagan agreed that \u201cparents have rights\u201d when it comes to their children\u2019s \u201clife choices,\u201d but that the court should wait until the case plays out before the Ninth Circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the conservatives wanted to consider the \u201cthorny legal issues\u201d involved, she added, they should agree to hear a Massachusetts case, Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, that makes similar arguments for parental rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy recent count, almost 40 cases raising due process and\/or free exercise objections to similar school policies are currently in the judicial system,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBy granting certiorari on one (or more) of those cases, the court could ensure that the issues raised<\/p>\n

by such policies receive the careful, disciplined consideration they merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court has repeatedly delayed its decision whether to grant or deny a hearing in the Foote case and another one from Florida<\/a>. Both are scheduled for consideration again this Friday.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement concurring with the majority, which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined, Justice Amy Coney Barrett disagreed that the court was hasty in overruling the Ninth Circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder California\u2019s policy, parents will be excluded \u2014 perhaps for years \u2014 from participating in consequential decisions about their child\u2019s mental health and wellbeing,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Teachers from the Escondido Union School District, near San Diego, originally filed the case in 2023, saying the state\u2019s guidance violates their Christian faith. Parents later joined the case. Without giving a reason, the court denied the teachers\u2019 request to set aside the Ninth Circuit\u2019s stay, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have sided with the teachers as well. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she would have denied the relief for all of the plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

David Mishook, an attorney with F3 Law, which represents California school districts, said that given the Supreme Court\u2019s \u201cstrong language,\u201d he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Bonta drops any challenge to Judge Benitez\u2019s injunction.<\/p>\n

While neither Benitez nor the Supreme Court come right out and say that teachers must proactively disclose a child\u2019s gender identity to parents, the order \u201csuggests that teachers, and by extension their employers, now stand at great risk if they do not discuss gender expression with parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

[inline _story url=\u201dhttps:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/trump-administration-takes-on-school-emails-as-parental-rights-issue\/\u201d<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s ruling follows a late January decision in which the Education Department concluded<\/a> that California\u2019s policies violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which gives parents the right to inspect their children\u2019s educational records. She pointed to instances in which schools used trans students\u2019 preferred names and pronouns in school databases, but parents would see legal names when they logged in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state risks losing over $5 billion in federal funds if it doesn\u2019t comply with the department\u2019s demands, including allowing districts to pass parental notification policies.<\/p>\n

Bonta promptly sued<\/a> the department, saying the penalty would cause \u201cimminent and irreparable injury to California.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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We\u2019d love to hear how The 74\u2019s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The U.S. Supreme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15,4294,12887,2434,100,2794,2214],"class_list":["post-202476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-education","tag-gender-identity","tag-k-12","tag-lgbtq","tag-news","tag-rob-bonta","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202476","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=202476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}