Sacramento, California –
California became the first state to forbid school districts from enacting laws of this kind when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Monday that shields transgender and gay children from having to tell their parents who they are.
The newly enacted legislation will supersede policies that school boards in areas of the state marked as red will mandate that staff members inform parents if their children exhibit indicators of gender identity.
The legal environment pertaining to such regulations will also be altered; progressive organizations have challenged them in multiple courts, with varying degrees of success.
Legislative LGBTQ Caucus head and state senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat, stated in a statement that “safe and supportive schools for all our children should be our top priority.” At the end of the day, this law makes sure that our K–12 schools continue to be safe and supportive environments for our children, regardless of how they identify.
After engaging in a heated debate over school book challenges, Newsom now finds himself squarely in opposition to the right wing of the so-called parental rights education movement with this signature.
While in office, Newsom shocked members of his own party by permitting same-sex unions in 2004. However, a year later, he turned down a bill that would have required judges to take the gender identities of children into account when deciding who gets to keep the kids.
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There are around 1,000 school boards in California. In the past year, at least seven of those boards have established policies mandating that staff notify parents if their child begins using a name or pronoun that does not correspond to the sex given at birth. While allowing certain rules to stay in place, courts have restricted or blocked others.
Teachers who teach state-mandated sexual education will not be reprimanded under Assembly Bill 1955, which also forbids school districts from forcing staff to inform parents about a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
Republicans-backed school board members in the progressive state have suffered another setback with the passing of the bill. Due to opposition to their racial and gender policies, people have removed a number of them in recent months in local recall elections.
When it came to the school board policy last year, which detractors called a “forced outing” and defenders called “parental notification,” Newsom repeatedly declined to comment. Moreover, legislative Democrats canceled their intentions to address the policies last year, citing the need for additional time to work on the legislation and associated messaging.
Newsom stated he “draws the line” at asking instructors to “out” pupils in an interview with the Los Angeles Times later that year. Introduced in May, the SAFETY Act was a proposal by Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward and other lawmakers to completely eliminate school district policies.
Ward, the bill’s author, explained that the SAFETY Act “simply ensures that conversations about gender identity and sexuality happen at home without interference from others outside of the family unit.”