Gavin Newsom implements ban on schools notifying parents of students’ trans identity

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation into law on Monday banning school districts from notifying parents about changes in pronoun usage or gender identity by their children at school, making the state the first in the nation to do so, per the Daily Wire.

Assembly Bill 1955, also known as the "Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act or SAFETY Act," states that "Choosing when to 'come out' by disclosing an LGBTQ+ identity, and to whom, are deeply personal decisions, impacting health and safety as well as critical relationships, that every LGBTQ+ person has the right to make for themselves."

"Parents and families have an important role to play in the lives of young people. Studies confirm that LGBTQ+ youth thrive when they have parental support and feel safe sharing their full identities with them, but it can be harmful to force young people to share their full identities before they are ready. Policies that forcibly “out” pupils without their consent remove opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people and their families to build trust and have these conversations when they are ready. LGBTQ+ pupils have the right to express themselves freely at school without fear, punishment, or retaliation, including that teachers or administrators might 'out' them without their permission. Policies that require outing pupils without their consent violate pupils’ rights to privacy and self-determination," the bill stated.

The bill states that school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and state schools for the blind or deaf "shall not enact or enforce any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that would require an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent, unless otherwise required by state or federal law."

State Senator Scott Wiener, a co-author of the bill, stated at a June Pride Flag raising of the bill, "we introduced legislation to ban these forced outing policies that some school boards are starting to adopt. Because we know that for all of us—a lot of experience in this room—in terms of coming out, in terms of when, if, how someone comes out to their parents, that is our decision, and no [one] else’s damn business and we're going to make that clear the law of the state of California." 

Harmeet Dhillon, CEO and Founder of the Center for American Liberty, told the Daily Wire, "AB 1955 is an outrageous attempt to keep parents in the dark while schools indoctrinate kids with radical gender ideology. By signing the bill, Gov. Newsom is transferring power away from our local communities and centralizing it in Sacramento, blatantly undermining our democratic values."