California law that forbids 'forced outing' of trans students blocked by 9th Circuit
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California’s effort to shield the decisions of transgender students in public schools from the eyes of prying parents remains on hold this week after the U.S.9th Circuit Court of Appeals found a state law designed to protect them was likely unconstitutional.The U.S.
Supreme Court previously upheld a temporary block on the law after it was challenged, sending the case back to the appellate court.The 9th Circuit’s ruling Thursday kept the block in place, saying the state cannot enforce the measure while the court battle over its legality continues.Passed in 2024, the California law known as Assembly Bill 1955 was intended to prevent school employees from notifying parents about a student’s gender expression without their consent.
Boosters of the law say it protects vulnerable students from “forced outing” to families who may be hostile to their trans and nonbinary children.Opponents say it compels schools to “mislead” parents about their children and leaves them “shut out” of critical decisions.
The 9th Circuit had previously allowed the law to stand while the state fought an injunction from a district court in Santa Ana.Legal experts said the appellate court’s latest decision appeared to expand “parental rights” — a move with potentially significant implications for all U.S.
families, including the roughly 72.5 million American children who are not transgender.Mary Ziegler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law and an expert on American parental rights laws, said the ruling was “arguably significantly more extensive than the Supreme Court has spelled out.”“Trans issues are hot-button issues ...but this kind of parental rights litigation has much broader ambitions, some of which have nothing to do with LGBTQ people,” she said.
“There’s an ambition to transform parental rights period, and the easiest way to do that is to focus on trans ...