California bans school districts from outing trans kids

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a bill to protect transgender and gay students from being outed to their parents, making California the first state to explicitly prohibit school districts from adopting such requirements.

The new law will override policies passed by school boards in red pockets of the state that required staff to notify parents whose children showed signs of being transgender. It will also upend the legal landscape around those rules — which were challenged by progressive groups in several courts with mixed results.

"Safe and supportive schools for all our children should be our top priority," state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, the Democratic chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, said in a statement. "And at the end of the day that’s what this bill does, ensures our K-12 campuses remain safe and affirming places for our youth no matter how they identify.”

The signing again pits Newsom against the right flank of the so-called parental rights education movement, with which he has jousted over school book challenges. Newsom gained national prominence as mayor of San Francisco in 2004 by allowing same sex marriages, bucking his own party, though he disappointed LGBTQ+ advocates last year by vetoing legislation that would have made judges consider children’s gender identities in custody disputes.

At least seven school boards in the state — California has around 1,000 — have passed rules within the last year requiring staff to tell parents if their child starts using a name or pronoun that doesn't match their sex assigned at birth. Courts have blocked or narrowed some of those policies while allowing others to remain in effect.

Assembly Bill 1955 will prohibit school districts from requiring staff to share information with parents about a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation and will also shield teachers from being disciplined for teaching state-mandating sexual education.

The law’s passage is another defeat for GOP-backed school board members in the liberal state. In recent months, voters have ousted several in local recall elections motivated by a backlash to their policies on race and gender.

Newsom last year declined several times to take a position on the school board policies, dubbed “parental notification” by supporters and “forced outing” by critics. And legislative Democrats called off plans to address the policies last year, explaining that they needed more time to work on the legislation as well as messaging around it.

Later last year, in an interview last year with the Los Angeles Times, Newsom said he “draws the line” at requiring teachers to “out” students. Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward and other lawmakers introduced their proposal to wipe out the school district policies in May and named it the SAFETY Act.

“The SAFETY Act,” said Ward, the author of the bill, “simply ensures that conversations about gender identity and sexuality happen at home without interference from others outside of the family unit.”