The City of Huntington Beach, Calif. has set up an interesting showdown with the state government. On September 17, it declared itself “a ‘Parents' Right to Know’ city” when the local council narrowly passed Ordinance No. 4326. The ordinance stipulates that “no educators in the city … shall withhold any information related to a child’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to Parents of said children with or without the child’s consent.”

This city ordinance conflicts with California’s parental secrecy law (AB 1955) passed in July, so the City of Huntington Beach and nine sets of parents immediately sued the state. “Parental rights are not secondary to the desires of government agencies,” the ordinance declared.

In many states, a local government would have little standing from which to challenge laws enacted by the state legislature. However, unusual circumstances give Huntington Beach real but limited authority to depart from California’s stated policy. Huntington Beach was incorporated as a charter city in 1937, which “are distinct individual entities and are not connected political subdivisions of the state,” according to an opinion by the California Court of Appeal.

The city argues that protecting parental rights “is a municipal affair, not a statewide concern,” and that their ordinance can therefore apply to “the City’s Libraries, Parks, City Recreational Facilities, Community Services Facilities, or other City facilities or City sponsored programming.”

Apparently excluded from the ordinance would be the three public school systems operating within the city, “Huntington Beach City School District, Ocean View School District (both K-8) and the Huntington Beach Union High School District,” listed the Orange County Tribune. “None of them are subject to the jurisdiction of the city government.”

By recognizing certain charter cities, it seems that California has transferred the tensions of federalism downward from nation vs. state to state vs. city, or even city vs. school board. This is an unusual construction, and it’s not immediately clear that principles of federalism would play out the same way. What is clear is that independent cities can lean in both partisan directions. If San Francisco can declare itself a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, what is to stop Huntington Beach for guaranteeing parents’ rights to be informed about the welfare of their children?

To sort out jurisdiction on this particular question, the City of Huntington Beach has sued the state of California, arguing that the state’s law violates the federal constitution by infringing upon parental rights. Represented by America First Legal, Huntington Beach contends that “the purported justifications for AB 1955, California statutory and constitutional protections for minor children of privacy and against discrimination, must give way to the federal Constitution’s protections for parental rights.”

The lawsuit combs through recent scientific findings, such as the Cass report, to emphasize that “gender dysphoria is a mental health disorder,” that “doctors know that some children will come to regret transitioning,” and that even “social transitioning is recognized as a medical intervention” and is harmful.

In other words, the city — and parents — have reasonable grounds for their concern about gender transition procedures for their children, grounds which cannot be reduced to some sort of anti-trans discrimination.

In fact, in classic California style, the nine sets of parents who joined the lawsuit represent diverse perspectives — but are in agreement about this one issue. One parent is “an African American and Jewish woman who considers herself a ‘lifelong liberal democrat,’” while another is “a self-described liberal democrat, and she supports the LGBTQ+ community.” These parents are participating not because of their politics, but because they know their own children and disagree with how this ideology is harming them.

The parents in the lawsuit have children as young as age seven that have been pressured to transition. “AB 1955 sets no age limit,” they protest. “Schools cannot notify parents even if preschoolers socially transition.”

The lawsuit asks the U.S. district court for the Central District of California to prevent California officials from enforcing this harmful, extreme, and unconstitutional law, declare it unconstitutional, and reaffirm parental rights and the Huntington Beach city ordinance.

The city and parents have a reasonable chance of success. Last September, a federal judge in the Southern District of California blocked a parental secrecy policy that a local school district sought to enforce against two Christian teachers, who were later reinstated. When the California legislature, undeterred, enacted a statewide parental secrecy policy this summer anyways, one legal expert suggested the bill was “dead on arrival” for violating parental rights. (This legal battle is separate from but happening simultaneously with California’s campaign to exterminate parental notification policies enacted by local school districts.)

It’s unclear whether the state of California will have any more persuasive excuses for assaulting parental rights, other than, “We really, really, really want to take kids from their conservative parents and make them trans.” That isn’t a good reason, and it isn’t the situation.

What is happening is that parents are fighting for the bare minimum of their God-given rights — merely the right to be informed about what is going on in their child’s life, the right California wants to deny them.