The Golden State’s attorney general is suing a school district for ensuring parents know when their children try to transition their genders. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed a lawsuit Monday against Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), alleging the school district’s policy requiring faculty and staff to notify parents of students’ attempted gender transitions is a civil rights violation.
The policy gives teachers three days to notify a student’s parents if that student uses pronouns or bathrooms, or asks to play on sports teams that don’t correspond to their biological sex. Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “This is the most minimal ask on the part of parents: will you please tell me if you start calling my child by another name at school? Will you please tell me if at school my child says that they think they are born in the wrong body? Will you please tell me if my child is accessing bathrooms or locker rooms of the opposite sex?”
Kilgannon added that it’s “incredibly sad” that Bonta would file this civil rights suit on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. She asked, “Did anyone in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s imagine that their work would be perverted into this: a state suing school boards to keep parents from knowing about identity therapies performed at school on their own little children?”
Earlier this month, Bonta’s office launched a civil rights investigation into CVUSD over the new policy, which he referred to as a “forced outing policy” that “threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members unaccepting of their gender identity.”
Appearing on “Washington Watch” on Tuesday night, Greg Burt, director of capitol engagement for the California Family Council, called the investigation and lawsuit “an intimidation factor.” He added, “Passing this lawsuit actually helps get the message out, exposing what [the] California Department of Ed. and our school districts are actually doing and what they really think of parents. They think they’re dangerous.” Burt also noted, “It’s undeniable now that, yes, it is true that the state of California thinks they’re better parents than the average parent.”
Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, agreed, telling The Washington Stand, “It’s a terribly dangerous situation for parents. The tyranny of the California government will never stop because they are totally convinced that protecting children from their parents is the right thing to do. After destroying families and sterilizing children, the people who do it will go home at night and feel great believing they have done much good.”
In the midst of the lawsuit against CVUSD, another California school district has had to settle with a mother who filed a lawsuit when her 11-year-old daughter was socially gender transitioned without her consent or even notification. The Spreckles Union School District agreed Tuesday to pay $100,000 to Jessica Konen and her daughter Alicia, after Konen alleged that teachers convinced Alicia she was a boy, refused to tell Konen when Alicia chose to go by a male name and male pronouns, and told Alicia not to tell her parents of her transition.
“For Christians it is time to wake up and speak truth in love,” Kilgannon remarked. “This dangerous and diabolical spirit of our age must be exposed and opposed. The California AG’s office may pretend or believe that they are doing this to protect vulnerable children. But parents know how dangerous policies like this are for our own families and for our country as a whole. The state can never replace the family.”
Bonta’s lawsuit follows a similar lawsuit filed by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) against three of his state’s school districts for mandating parental notification in cases of social gender transition procedures. In that case, a state judge sided with Platkin and blocked the school districts from enforcing the policy.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
