California\u2019s effort to shield the decisions of transgender students in public schools from the eyes of prying parents remains on hold this week after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found a state law designed to protect them was likely unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court previously upheld a temporary block on the law after it was challenged, sending the case back to the appellate court. The 9th Circuit\u2019s ruling Thursday kept the block in place, saying the state cannot enforce the measure while the court battle over its legality continues.<\/p>\n
Passed in 2024, the California law known as Assembly Bill 1955 was intended to prevent school employees from notifying parents about a student\u2019s gender expression without their consent. Boosters of the law say it protects vulnerable students from \u201cforced outing\u201d to families who may be hostile to their trans and nonbinary children. Opponents say it compels schools to \u201cmislead\u201d parents about their children and leaves them \u201cshut out\u201d of critical decisions. <\/p>\n
The 9th Circuit had previously allowed the law to stand while the state fought an injunction from a district court in Santa Ana. <\/p>\n
Legal experts said the appellate court\u2019s latest decision appeared to expand \u201cparental rights\u201d \u2014 a move with potentially significant implications for all U.S. families, including the roughly 72.5 million American children who are not transgender.<\/p>\n
Mary Ziegler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law and an expert on American parental rights laws, said the ruling was \u201carguably significantly more extensive than the Supreme Court has spelled out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrans issues are hot-button issues … but this kind of parental rights litigation has much broader ambitions, some of which have nothing to do with LGBTQ people,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s an ambition to transform parental rights period, and the easiest way to do that is to focus on trans issues.\u201d <\/p>\n
Quoting extensively from the related March Supreme Court decision<\/a>, the 9th Circuit panel found that parents \u201chave an affirmative constitutional right\u201d to be told if their children swap names or pronouns, change how they dress or otherwise alter their gender expression at school. <\/p>\n The panel of appellate judges said they heard no arguments that the California families who brought the challenge \u201care \u2018unfit parents\u2019 who present a risk of abuse if they are provided with information about their children exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria.\u201d <\/p>\n Conservatives, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, have criticized the California law for meddling in the affairs of families. <\/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 Barrett<\/a> wrote in a concurrence to the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in March. \u201cThus, the parents are likely to suffer irreparable harm if California enforces its policy while this litigation winds its way through the courts.\u201d <\/p>\n The court\u2019s liberal justices disagreed, finding the decision premature. <\/p>\n \u201cI have no doubt that parents have rights, even though unenumerated, concerning their children and the life choices they make,\u201d Justice Elena Kagen wrote in her dissent. \u201cCalifornia\u2019s policy, in depriving all parents of information critical to their children\u2019s health and well-being, could have crossed the constitutional line.\u201d <\/p>\n There are multiple similar suits currently en route to the high court, each challenging local or state policies that prevent schools from disclosing certain information about children\u2019s gender identity and expression to their parents. Many, including the two related California cases, are championed by conservative legal activists expressly in the name of parents\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s 9th Circuit ruling was a \u201cmajor victory,\u201d said America First Legal, an advocacy organization co-founded by senior White House aide Stephen Miller, which helped argue<\/a> the case. <\/p>\n