Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Monday that prevents schools from informing parents when their child decides to change his or her gender.
The bill, AB 1955, prohibits “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.”
The legislation would also prohibit employees or contractors of those educational entities from being required to make such a disclosure unless otherwise required by law.
In June 2023, a bill passed in California would make not affirming a child’s gender by one or both parents “child abuse.”
The bill, AB 957, rewrites much of the state’s family law and classifies “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.”
If a parent denies their child’s “gender identity,” it would be a violation of the child’s health, safety, and welfare, equivalent to child abuse.
Around the same time, another bill introduced in the state would criminalize “substantial disorder,” by parents protesting at school board meetings.
Critics argued that the legislation was an attempt to punish parents who oppose transgender and racial ideology in curriculum.
“This bill would specify, for purposes of the above-described offense, that “substantial disorder” includes substantial disorder at any meeting of the governing board of a school district, the governing body of a charter school, a county board of education, or the State Board of Education. The bill would define a “school employee” as any employee or official of a school district, a charter school, a county office of education, a county board of education, the state board, or the State Department of Education. To the extent the bill expands the scope of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program,” the state legislative counsel’s digest explained.
Parents have raised concern that the bill would violate their First Amendment Rights.
“It’s clear they’re trying to chill parents from speaking out,” Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said.
“I find it curious that there’s no definition of ‘substantial’ or ‘disruption’ within the proposed text,” Perry continued. “Considering that these are essential terms for the bill, it’s likely that if passed, the law would fall under a vagueness challenge.”
