On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that stops schools from having to tell families when a student’s gender identity changes. This ends a year-long fight between conservative school boards worried about parental rights and LGBTQ+ activists worried about protecting vulnerable teens.
The new law protects teachers from being fired for supporting the rights of transgender students and does not allow “forced disclosure” rules in grades K–12. In some red areas of California, school boards have decided to let parents know if their child changes their name or pronouns, or if a student asks to use facilities or participate in programs that don’t match their gender on file.
It is also written in the bill that the California Department of Education must give parents and students information on how to “manage conversations about gender and identity privately.”
Gender notification policies have been tried in some school districts in California, including Chino Valley and Temecula. These policies have been sued over student privacy rights, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta is against them because they could cause “imminent, irreparable harm” to LGBTQ+ teens and young adults who may not feel safe coming out at home.
The Movement Advancement Project says that since 2020, eight states, including Indiana and Tennessee, have passed laws that require schools to tell students about their gender. California is the first state to put an end to these kinds of laws at the local level.
The LGBTQ+ Democrats in the state legislature fought hard to pass AB 1955 last month, but Republicans said the policy would make it harder for parents and kids to get along and was an overreach by the government.
This bill was written by Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego). He said that teachers are not supposed to be “the gender police” and that the new rule does not get in the way of the relationship between a parent and child.
“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 wrote in a statement. “As a parent, I urge all parents to talk to their children, listen to them, and love them unconditionally for who they are.”
One person who was against the bill said that it took away the power of publicly elected school officials and made it impossible for parents to know what was going on with their children’s education and health.
Harmeet Dhillon, CEO and founder of the Center for American Liberty said, “AB 1955 is an outrageous attempt to keep parents in the dark while schools teach kids radical gender ideology.”
This is not the first time Newsom has gotten involved with high schools in the area.
He signed a law last year that fines school districts that don’t allow textbooks that show LGBTQ+ people or other groups that have been previously left out. Newsom fought with a conservative school board in Riverside County over lessons that showed the life and death of Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and politician from San Francisco. The bill was passed after the fight.