Newsom wants to get his way. But that’s not always going to happen.
And Gavin Newsom is kicking and screaming thanks to what this federal judge did.
A U.S. District Court judge has slammed the brakes on California’s twisted policy that forced teachers to keep kids’ gender transitions hidden from their own parents. This Monday ruling hits hard against the state’s attempt to wedge itself between families and educators, marking a huge win for common sense and family values.
The fight started with a class-action lawsuit from two dedicated Christian teachers who refused to play along with the absurd demands. They stood up against laws that ordered them to conceal students’ gender changes from moms and dads while pushing the use of whatever pronouns kids picked. Now, Judge Roger T. Benitez has “permanently” crushed these “California’s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools,” as the Thomas More Society, the group behind the suit, put it.
This decision doesn’t just protect the two brave teachers who kicked off the battle—Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West—but stands up for every parent and educator across the Golden State who’s been steamrolled by these invasive rules. It’s a clear message that government bureaucrats can’t bully families into silence.
“In a landmark class-action ruling, Thomas More Society achieved a historic victory in Mirabelli, et al. v. Olson, et al., ending California’s gender secrecy policies and restoring transparency and parental involvement in public education,” the Thomas More Society stated.
“The decision and federal court order issuing a class-wide permanent injunction—issued by U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez just days before Christmas—secures justice not only for teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West who began the lawsuit, but for all parents and teachers harmed by these policies statewide.”
Judge Benitez dove straight into the heart of the issue, tackling four key questions about what rights parents really hold when schools try to play hide-and-seek with a child’s gender identity. He laid it out plain and simple, exposing how these policies trample on basic freedoms.
First up: Do parents have a right to know about their kid’s gender info under the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause?
Next: Do parents get that same info shielded by the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause?
Then the judge turned to the teachers: Do religious public school educators have the right to share gender details with parents, backed by the First Amendment’s free exercise clause?
And finally: Do all public school teachers have the freedom to pass on accurate gender info to parents under the First Amendment’s free speech clause?
“In each case, this Court concludes that, as a matter of law, the answer is ‘yes,” the judge stated. “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.”
These so-called parental exclusion policies from California’s public schools build a wall that blocks honest talk between teachers and families. Benitez called it out for what it is—a deliberate barrier that favors secrecy over trust.
“California’s public school system parental exclusion policies place a communication barrier between parents and teachers,” he said.
“Some parents who do not want such barriers may have the wherewithal to place their children in private schools or homeschool, or to move to a different public school district. Families in middle or lower socio-economic circumstances have no such options. For these parents, the new policy appears to undermine their own constitutional rights while it conflicts with knowledgeable medical opinion. The State Defendants are, in essence, asking this Court to limit, and restrict a common-sense and legally sound description by the United States Supreme Court of parental rights. That, this Court will not do.”
This hits hardest on everyday working families who can’t just pack up and flee to better districts. It’s a classic case of elite liberals in Sacramento imposing their radical ideas on folks who bear the brunt without escape routes.
At the core, these policies unleash a triple threat of damage, ripping apart the fabric of family life and school trust. Kids suffer most when they’re left without mom and dad’s input on something as serious as gender confusion.
“The parental exclusion policies create a trifecta of harm: they harm the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure, or a fleeting impulse. They harm the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs And finally, they harm teachers who are compelled to violate the sincerely held beliefs and the parent’s rights by forcing them to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students,” the judge stated.
This ruling fires a shot across the bow for other states flirting with similar woke nonsense—it’s time to put parents back in the driver’s seat and kick government meddling to the curb.
