The Supreme Court has cleared the way for California schools to inform parents if their children identify as transgender without student approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.
This order temporarily blocks a state law that prohibited automatic parental notification when students change their pronouns or gender expression at school.
The ruling follows challenges from religious parents and educators against California school policies preventing schools from outing students to their families. Catholic parents, represented by the Thomas More Society, claimed schools misled them and secretly facilitated their children's social transition despite their objections.
California officials countered that students have a right to privacy regarding their gender expression, especially if they fear family rejection, and that school policies aimed to balance this with parental rights.
The high court, though, sided with the parents and reinstated a lower-court order blocking the law and school policies while the case continues to play out.
The Supreme Court has ruled for religious plaintiffs in other recent cases, including allowing parents to pull their children from public-school lessons if they object to storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters.
The California order comes months after the court upheld state bans on gender-identity-related healthcare for minors. The justices also seem to be leaning toward allowing states to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams.
School policies for transgender students, meanwhile, have also been on the court’s radar in other cases.
The court rebuffed another similar case out of Wisconsin in December, but three conservative justices indicated they would have heard the case. Justice Samuel Alito called the school policies “an issue of great and growing national importance.”
The Trump administration, meanwhile, found in January that California's policies violated parents' right to access their children's education records. The Justice Department also sued after determining the states' transgender athlete policies violate federal civil rights law.
