SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A parental notification policy is expanding across the state. More school boards are requiring staff to notify parents if their child asks to be identified by a different gender or name.
Now, one group is pushing to get a statewide version of this – and two other initiatives involving transgender youth – on the Nov. 2024 ballot.
A group of parents with a group called Protect Kids California rallied at the Capitol Monday, around a heated issue involving transgender youth and more parental control in schools.
"What we actually are is a collection of parents and young adults who are advocating for parents' rights and protecting kids from dangerous and unproven policies and ideology,” said Students First California board member Jay Reed.
Students First California formed the committee Protect Kids California, which is behind three statewide initiatives involving transgender youth. Those initiatives were submitted Monday to the Attorney General’s Office. The AG has 60 days to issue a title and summary for each of the initiatives, and then Protect Kids California has six months to gather 546,651 certified signatures from registered California voters for each initiatives. If they do, that qualifies the initiative(s) for the Nov. 2024 ballot.
One Initiative – called the School Transparency and Partnership Act - would require schools to alert parents when a student asks the school to treat them as transgender.
The second initiative – the Protect Girls’ Sports and Spaces Act - would ban transgender girls who were assigned a 'male' sex at birth from competing in girls sports.
The third – Protect Children from Reproductive Harm Act - would prohibit the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and genital surgeries for minors in all of California.
In a post Friday, Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener called the group "anti-LGBTQ bigots" who are "targeting trans kids."
Erin Friday, a lawyer, activist, mom and Democrat with Protect Kids California, said, “to call us transphobic is painful to me because we all love our children, whether they identify as trans or not. We still love our children and we will still support our children. We may not support the transgender identity."
California is already seeing some of this at the local school district level. Back in July, ABC10 reported on Chino Valley Unified School District and board members' vote to approve a 'parental notification policy.' It requires teachers, counselors and staff to notify a student's parents within three days of learning the student wants to be treated as a gender other than the sex they were assigned at birth. That includes asking to go by a different name or pronouns, use a different restroom or join a sports team that doesn't correspond with their assigned sex at birth.
But now, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing Chino Valley Unified. This comes after he launched an investigation into the policy.
In a news release, he said, “every student has the right to learn and thrive in a school environment that promotes safety, privacy, and inclusivity – regardless of their gender identity. We're in court challenging Chino Valley Unified's forced outing policy for wrongfully and unconstitutionally discriminating against and violating the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students."
He said the policy places "transgender and gender-nonconforming students in danger of imminent, irreparable harm from the consequences of forced disclosures."
Those with Protect Kids California say parents have a right to know what's going on with their student at school.
“The government has no rights – no right whatsoever – to withhold information from parents, particularly information as serious as whether a child is experiencing gender dysphoria, an extremely serious situation,” said Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R-Riverside). “Parents must be involved in this extremely delicate and complicated time in a child's life."
As for the parental notification policy, Chino Valley Unified isn’t the only district that has voted to pass something like this. It joins three others: Anderson Union High School District near Redding and Temecula Valley USD and Murrieta Valley USD, both in Southern California.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Elk Grove Unified is set to hear a presentation about parents rights at its next meeting on Sept. 5, and Rocklin Unified is looking into strengthening parent notification policies and will hear a presentation on the subject at its Sept. 6 meeting.
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