A U.S. District Court judge has issued a permanent injunction against California's policy requiring teachers to conceal students' gender transitions from parents. The ruling, from Judge Roger T. Benitez, stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by two Christian teachers. It affirms parents' and teachers' constitutional rights to share and receive information on students' gender identity.
The decision in Mirabelli, et al. v. Olson, et al., was handed down just days before Christmas by Judge Roger T. Benitez in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. It permanently ends what critics called California's "dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools." The lawsuit was brought by the Thomas More Society on behalf of teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West, who challenged a state law mandating that educators hide students' gender transitions from parents and use preferred pronouns without disclosure.
Benitez framed the case around four key questions concerning parental and teacher rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments:
- Do parents have a right to gender information based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause?
- Do parents have a right to gender information protected by the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause?
- Do religious public school teachers have a right to provide gender information to parents based on the First Amendment’s free exercise clause?
- Do public school teachers have a right to communicate accurate gender information to parents based on the First Amendment free speech clause?
To each, the judge answered affirmatively, stating, “Parents have a right to receive gender information and teachers have a right to provide to parents accurate information about a child’s gender identity.”
In his opinion, Benitez highlighted the policy's broader impacts, noting it creates a "communication barrier between parents and teachers." He pointed out that while some families can opt for private schools or homeschooling, those in middle or lower socio-economic circumstances lack such choices, potentially undermining their constitutional rights and conflicting with medical advice on child welfare.
The ruling describes a "trifecta of harm": to children needing parental guidance for issues like gender incongruence possibly stemming from bullying or peer pressure; to parents deprived of their rights to guide health decisions and religious upbringing; and to teachers forced to conceal information against their beliefs. The Thomas More Society celebrated the outcome as a "historic victory" restoring transparency and parental involvement in public education statewide.
