Judge blocks California schools from enforcing policy preventing 'forced outing'

SAN DIEGO (CN) — California public schools cannot prevent teachers from disclosing the preferred gender identities to their parents, according to a federal judge on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez granted a summary judgment to parents and educators who challenged a California public school policy that prevented school staff from notifying parents when a student chooses to use a different gender identity or pronouns.

Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that the rights of parents to direct the medical care and religious upbringing of their children long predate any proclaimed responsibility of the state over children in the United States.

“Parental involvement is essential to the healthy maturation of schoolchildren,” Benitez wrote. “California’s public school system parental exclusion policies place a communication barrier between parents and teachers … The state defendants are, in essence, asking this court to limit, and restrict a common-sense and legally sound description by the United States Supreme Court of parental rights. That, this court will not do.”

The parents and educators opposed to the school policy argued that it violated the religious freedoms of parents and teachers who disagree with more progressive ideas on gender identity. They also argued that it violated the due process rights of parents to information about their children from state schools.

Benitez said he would issue a permanent injunction that barred the repeating or enforcing of similar parental exclusion policies in a separate order.

Though Benitez said the state’s desire to protect LGBTQ youth from potential discrimination or harassment was commendable, he wrote that policies employed to conceal a child’s mental health from parents were harmful to the children, parents and teachers.

“They harm the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure or a fleeting impulse,” Benitez wrote. “They harm the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs. And finally, they harm teachers who are compelled to violate the sincerely held beliefs and the parent’s rights by forcing them to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students.”

The state argued that the school policies helped foster a learning environment for all students, regardless of their parents’ belief system. Attorneys for the state also said that the policy protects children from potential abuse at home if their parents do not support their gender identity.

But Benitez said the law was overbroad and that attorneys did not show how it furthered the government’s interest in protecting students, pointing to medical experts who say parental support is in students’ best interest.

“[Defendants] say in essence narrow tailoring is too cumbersome. However, this is a problem of the state defendants’ own making. It is not a defense justifying broad-based trenching on individual rights. When the state drops an elephant in the middle of its classrooms, it is not a defense to say that the elephants are too heavy to move,” Benitez said.

LGBTQ youth often face higher percentages of mental health issues than other youth. About 25% of transgender youth attempted suicide in 2023, according to a youth risk survey published by the Center for Disease Control in 2024.

There are 2.8 million people who are 13 and older in the United States who identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute, a UCLA gender policy think tank. Among those, 76% are under 35 years old, according to the Williams Institute.

The complaint was originally filed on behalf of former Escondido Unified School District teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West in 2023. The Escondido Unified School District removed the gender policy after the lawsuit, though opponents accused the educators of still maintaining de facto parental exclusion policies online.

“Today’s incredible victory finally, and permanently, ends California’s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools,” said Paul Jonna, an attorney with the Thomas More Society who represented Mirabelli and West, in a statement. “The court’s comprehensive ruling — granting summary judgment on all claims — protects all California parents, students, and teachers, and it restores sanity and common sense. With this decisive ruling from Judge Benitez, all state and local school officials that mandate gender secrecy policies should cease all enforcement or face severe legal consequences.”

Jonna described his clients as fighters who never wavered in their religious beliefs.

Benitez signaled his support in favor of the parents and teachers opposed to the policies during a November hearing.

“Historically, school teachers informed parents of physical injuries or questions about a student’s health and well-being,” he wrote. “But for something as significant as a student’s expressed change of gender, California public school parents end up left in the dark. When it comes to a student’s change in gender identity, California state policymakers apparently do not trust parents to do the right thing for their child.”

The state could potentially appeal the judgment. The California Attorney General’s Office did not respond for comment.