The California senate passed a bill that essentially bans notifying parents of child gender transitions — a biological impossibility — which coincides with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) apparent belief that parents do not have the right to know if their child is “transitioning.”
Lawmakers consider the legislation — AB-1955 Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act — something that would protect the “forced outing” of a child to his or her parents. According to a summary of the bill:
This bill would prohibit school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and the state special schools, and a member of the governing board or body of those educational entities, from enacting or enforcing any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that requires an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent unless otherwise required by law, as provided. The bill would prohibit employees or contractors of those educational entities from being required to make such a disclosure unless otherwise required by law, as provided. The bill would prohibit employees or contractors of school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, or the state special schools, or members of the governing boards or bodies of those educational entities, from retaliating or taking adverse action against an employee on the basis that the employee supported a pupil in the exercise of specified rights, work activities, or providing certain instruction, as provided.
In other words, parents would be left in the dark, as the legislation states, “Policies that forcibly ‘out’ pupils without their consent remove opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people and their families to build trust and have these conversations when they are ready.”