Supreme Court Slaps Down California Policy On Gender-Confused Kids

The Supreme Court sided with a group of parents challenging a California policy that allowed schools to keep kids’ so-called gender transitions a secret.

In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the justices said that California policies that block schools from notifying parents about their child’s desire to change their sex and be referred to by incorrect pronouns likely violate their religious liberty. The ruling comes after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a lower court’s ruling siding with parents challenging California’s policies.

“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” the Supreme Court majority wrote. “The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California’s policies violate those beliefs.”

The California Department of Education has argued that the challenge should be considered moot because they claim that a frequently-asked-questions page posted by the department has been edited to show that they do not mandate parental exclusion, and so there is no more cause for complaint. The FAQ page included a line that said, “with rare exceptions, schools are required to respect the limitations that a student places on the disclosure of their transgender status, including not sharing that information with the student’s parents.”

While that guidance was deleted, policies that kept parents in the dark about their children were still promoted in statewide teacher trainings, according to documents uncovered by the Thomas More Society.

Policies prohibiting local school districts from passing measures requiring teachers to inform parents about a student’s identity were signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” the majority wrote.

They added that “the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here—unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition—is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud.”

Mahmoud was a case from last year where the court ruled that a Maryland county violated the rights of parents who wanted to opt their kids out of instruction related to LGBT content.

Paul Jonna, special counsel at the Thomas More Society and partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP, said the ruling was a major victory for parents.

“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” she said. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back. The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.”

The court’s liberal justices — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wanted to block the parents’ challenge.