A U.S. District Court affirmed parents’ fundamental constitutional rights and blocked California schools from hiding information about a child’s “gender identity” from them.

Judge Roger T. Benitez’ decision also affirmed the religious liberty and free speech of teachers, saying the legislators and the California Department of Education (CDOE) could not force teachers to lie to parents or hide their children’s sexual identity confusion from them.

In addition to striking down California’s “parental exclusion policies,” the judge also made some critically true comments about parents’ rights and transgenderism.

It’s a huge victory in the fight against government tyranny in the Golden State, as legislators and agencies have run roughshod over parents and children in their effort to support “transgender” ideology.

Judge Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, stated that the class action lawsuit involved four fundamental legal questions:

• First, do parents have a right to gender information based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause? 
• Second, do parents have a right to gender information protected by the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause? 
• Third, do religious public school teachers have a right to provide gender information to parents based on the First Amendment’s free exercise clause? 
• Fourth, do public school teachers have a right to communicate accurate gender information to parents based on the First Amendment free speech clause?

The judge emphatically responded to these questions: “In each case, this Court concludes that, as a matter of law, the answer is ‘yes.’ 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 a press release touting the significance of the decision, Thomas More Society Special Counsel Paul M. Jonna, a partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, stated: “Today’s incredible victory finally, and permanently, ends California’s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools. The Court’s comprehensive ruling – granting summary judgment on all claims – protects all California parents, students, and teachers, and it restores sanity and common sense. With this decisive ruling from Judge Benitez, all state and local school officials that mandate gender secrecy policies should cease all enforcement or face severe legal consequences.”

The case began in April 2023 when the Thomas More Society brought a lawsuit on behalf of Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, teachers at Rincon Middle School, against the Escondido Unified School District “over policies requiring them to keep secrets from, and even lie to, parents about their minor-age students.”

The Southern California school district, according to that lawsuit, required school staff to  “unhesitatingly accept a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender diverse identity.” Its “gender” policy added, “There’s no requirement for parent or caretaker agreement or even for knowledge.”

School staff were told “that ‘revealing a student’s transgender status to individuals who do not have a legitimate need for the information, without the student’s consent’ is prohibited,” adding that “parents or caretakers … do not have a legitimate need for the information.”

The complaint said the Southern California school district’s requirements “violate teachers’ free speech and free exercise of religion rights,” as well as parents’ rights to raise and care for their children.

In September 2023 Judge Benitez issued a preliminary injunction against the Escondido District policy, and in 2024 the suit was expanded into a class action lawsuit on behalf of parents and teachers across the state.

In this most recent decision, which applies to the entire state, Judge Benitez made some important statements about parents and children, transgender ideology, and the state.

First, he noted that California used “the privacy clause of the state constitution and other state anti-discrimination laws” to defend parental exclusion policies.

Judge Benitez said this was “upside-down,” elevating children’s “state-created right to privacy” above “parents’ federal constitutional right to care for and raise their children.”

He quoted 2000 Supreme Court decision Troxel v. Granville: “It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.”

Second, transgender activists and their allies have tried to label a parent not agreeing with a child’s rejection of their sex as “abuse.” But the judge clearly stated, “Disagreement is not abuse, and the court so finds.”

In fact, not informing parents about a child’s sexual identity confusion can create serious harms. Judge Benitez pointed to three cases where hiding sexual identity confusion from parents led to serious harm to children, including increased anxiety, depression and suicidality.

Third, the judge was clear that “social transitioning,” where a child chooses a name and clothing of the opposite sex, is not a benign act, but is actually a medical decision – especially since it affects a child’s mental health.

Benitez referenced a decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that made this point, the court noting the medical goal of dealing with mental distress.

But the state of California claimed that social transitioning is a mere “polite social courtesy,” not medical care.

Judge Benitez said that “whether expressing gender incongruence is pathological or healthy, or, whether social transitioning is or is not a medical procedure” does not matter, opining, “The question is whether being involved in potentially serious medical or psychological decision-making for their school student is a parent’s constitutional right.”    

His simple response: “It is.”

Daily Citizen is a news division of Focus on the Family that provides a faith-based perspective to counter the mainstream media’s anti-Christian bias.