Supreme Court Upholds Parental Rights Against California Gender Secrecy Policy

The Supreme Court Monday vindicated parental rights, upholding an injunction against California’s gender secrecy policy, which mandated that school staff hide a student’s claimed transgender identity from parents unless the student expressly consented to reveal it.

“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” Paul Jonna, special counsel at the Thomas More Society, said in a statement responding to the decision Monday. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back.”

“The court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country,” Jonna added.

Challenging the Gender Secrecy Policies

The Thomas More Society sued on behalf of teachers in the state who feared punishment if they refused to lie about a student’s gender identity. Parents and other teachers joined the lawsuit, challenging the Escondido Union School District’s policy of hiding students’ gender identities from parents unless students consented to reveal them.

The teachers also sued the California Department of Education, which has a similar policy.

While a district court judge issued a permanent injunction blocking the schools from enforcing gender secrecy policies, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted the school district and the state a stay of the injunction.

The Supreme Court’s Parental Rights Ruling

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned opinion vacating the 9th Circuit’s stay when it comes to the parents. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have ruled in favor of the parents and the teachers, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor would not have taken up the case.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion, which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.

The court’s unsigned opinion recounted the story of two parents who didn’t know their eighth grade daughter publicly identified as a boy until after she attempted to commit suicide and was hospitalized. Months after her daughter left the hospital, she returned to the hospital after further risk of self-harm. Their daughter attended a different school for ninth grade and once again identified as a boy; that school also hid her gender transition, expressly rejecting the parents’ wishes. The daughter is now receiving psychiatric care.

The court concluded that “the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim.”

California’s policies “substantially interfere with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children,’” the court ruled, citing Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case in which the court ruled that parents have the right to opt their children out of receiving LGBTQ+ instruction.

“The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court ruled.

“California’s policies violate those beliefs” and impose an “unacceptable” burden on them, the opinion stated. “Indeed, the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here—unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition—is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud.”

California claims that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy, but the court ruled that “those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”

The court also found that the parents would likely succeed in claiming the state violated their due process rights.

“Under long-established precedent, parents—not the state—have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.’ The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health,” the opinion stated.

The court found that “the denial of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights during the potentially protracted appellate process constitutes irreparable harm.”

The court also noted that the district court’s injunction permits California “to shield children from unfit parents by enforcing child-abuse laws and removing children from parental custody in appropriate cases,” thus allowing for the key interest of protecting children while protecting parental rights.

Justice Kagan faulted the court for issuing an emergency ruling after receiving “scant and, frankly, inadequate briefing about the legal issues in dispute,” and without holding an oral argument or debating in conference.

Wrapping Up the Parental Rights Case

The court did not uphold the right of teachers to refuse to lie to parents—the key issue at the beginning of the case—but the ruling here only applies to the injunction; it does not resolve the overall case.

That said, lower courts will follow the Supreme Court’s lead and uphold the fundamental rights of parents against gender secrecy policies, making the case a pivotal victory for parental rights.

This article originally appeared at The Daily Signal.