(LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has rebuked the state for attempting to exclude parents from school decisions over “socially transitioning” their gender-confused children, in a victory for parental rights over LGBT activism.
Back in 2023, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez sided with Christian teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West in their lawsuit against Escondido Union School District, which was trying to force teachers to withhold from parents signs that a child is struggling with gender dysphoria. The policy created a “trifecta of harm” that “harms the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention,” the judge found at the time.
Later that month, however, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a guidance directing school districts to disregard that ruling, as it only applied to those specific teachers in that specific district, along with a similar ruling by a lower court in another case.
“By forcing disclosure of a [so-called] transgender or gender nonconforming student’s gender expression or gender identity—even against a student’s wishes, and with no exception for situations involving a potential threat of parental harm or violence—forced disclosure policies not only violate [so-called] transgender and gender nonconforming students’ rights to equal protection, nondiscrimination and privacy, but they risk breaching the duty of care school districts owe to these and all students,” the guidance said, warning that doing so would be considered a violation of California law.
The legal battle continued, with the teachers represented by the Thomas More Society, which on Monday announced that a permanent injunction has now been issued statewide against the policy, again written by Benitez. The judge further directs the state to add to its teacher training materials the following explicit reminder:
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence. Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence. These federal constitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.”
“We loved our jobs, our students, and the school communities we served,” said Mirabelli and West. “But we were forced into an impossible position when school officials demanded that we lie to parents—violating not only our faith, but also the trust that must exist between teachers and families. No educator should ever be placed in that situation. This victory is not just ours. It is a win for honesty, transparency, and the fundamental rights of teachers and parents. We are so thankful that this chapter is finally closed and that justice has prevailed.”
A large body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them. Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” practices fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality, race, and other agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools, from libraries to drag events to classroom materials to even “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas.
The Trump administration has taken steps to depoliticize public education, including by ordering the elimination of federal funds to schools that continue diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and by reversing the Biden administration’s infusion of gender ideology into Title IX rules.
