State Attorney General Rob Bonta reiterates promise to protect LGBTQ+ students from attacks

California Attorney General Rob Bonta reiterated his goal to protect all LGBTQ+ students from anti-LGBTQ+ attacks from state legislatures to school boards that threaten to isolate, discriminate against, and harm transgender and gender-nonconforming youth across the nation and even California, during his most recent visit to Fresno.

“And how is it different than universal notification of a student’s academic performance or an injury that they have at school? It’s different because it targets only one group of people because of who they are. And they are a protected class based on their gender identity,” Bonta said.

Bonta was asked by news media about the difference between notifying parents about their children’s gender and pronouns versus bad grades or disciplinary issues, and the legal difference between both.

“So the issue you’re talking about and the issue that I’m involved in, is a group of government officials on a local school board, who have passed a policy that targets, singles out, discriminated against and violates the constitutional rights, civil rights and privacy rights of one of our most vulnerable populations, based on who they are based on being part of a protected class transgender children,” Bonta said.

Bonta stopped in Fresno on Sept. 12 for an anti-hate roundtable discussion with local community leaders and advocates who shared their hate crime experiences.

“Here in the Central Valley, there has been a movement to out students in schools,” April Taylor-Salery, Trans-E-Motion board member told Bonta. “And similar to what you did at Chino, we would like for something similar.”

Parental notification outing policies have become a hot topic in the Central Valley and the rest of the state.

Recently, Clovis parents asked that the Clovis Unified School District’s board create a written policy to notify parents if their child requests to change their name, pronoun, gender expression or identity.

School districts in California such as Chino Valley, Rocklin and Orange school districts are implementing those types of policies requiring staff to also notify parents if the student request access to sex-segregated school programs and activities, or bathrooms or changing facilities that do not align with the student’s biological sex or gender.

Early this month, a state judge placed Chino Valley school district’s policy outing transgender students to parents on hold.

“It doesn’t matter what they want to call it, what justification or rationale for doing it. You cannot get past the simple fact that this is an act of discrimination that’s unlawful,” Bonta said.

Bonta said those policies violate multiple sections of the Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause privacy protections, and two separate government codes.

“They knew that it would violate those laws, they’re doing it anyway,” Bonta said of school districts like Chino Valley.

For school boards that are considering implementing creating those types of policies, Bonta asks them to relook at the oath they took to uphold the laws and constitutions of the U.S. and California.

“This contemplated act that you may be considering, based on the policy that we’ve already seen in Chino Valley, if it’s like that policy, it violates the law,” Bonta said, adding that those school boards can have a look at the Chino Valley lawsuit, briefing, citations for the law and the facts as well as a neutral third party judge’s decision who issued a temporary restraining order.

“And in that finding it said the children are in imminent harm and at risk of irreparable harm,” Bonta said. “And the state, the California Department of Justice, the Attorney General is likely to succeed in this case on the merits.

“Have a close look at that order, as well as our case law to all the school board members who are contemplating making it, taking a similar illegal discriminatory act,” Bonta said.

In June, Bonta released the 2022 hate crime report that showed a 20.2% increase in reported hate crime events in California, as well as a sharp spike in hate incidents against LGBTQ+ residents, along with Blacks and Jews. Hate crime events involving sexual orientation increased by 29%.

This is part of a series on Stop The Hate, a project funded by the California State Library.