Dive Brief:

• A California case that could decide whether parents have the right to know their children’s LGBTQ+ identity and whether teachers have the right to share or conceal that information could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
• A U.S. District Court ruling in Mirabelli v. Olson in late December barred district policies statewide that prevent teachers from informing parents about students' gender expression. The decision said such policies violate the First and 14th Amendment rights of parents, signaling a win for the parental choice movement.
• However, the decision was immediately appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by the state, which overturned the block on district policies Monday — allowing state protections for transgender and nonbinary students. A conservative law firm said on Tuesday it intends to appeal to the Supreme Court in an emergency request. 

Dive Insight:

The case is part of a larger national divide over whether schools should reveal students' LGBTQ+ identities to their parents or guardians or withhold that information, and is setting up a legal battle in a state that is leading the charge on student pronoun protections. 

The Dec. 22 decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez barring district policies found that not only do parents have a right to gender information under the First Amendment, but that religious public school teachers also have a right to provide it. 

"Historically, school teachers informed parents of physical injuries or questions about a student’s health and well being. For example, where an eight year old student is sexually assaulted at school, the school owes a duty to inform the parents," wrote Benitez in the ruling against Escondido Union School District and California state officials.

"But for something as significant as a student’s expressed change of gender, California public school parents end up left in the dark. When it comes to a student’s change in gender identity, California state policymakers apparently do not trust parents to do the right thing for their child," wrote Benitez.

Currently, 15 states require schools to reveal LGBTQ+ identities under certain circumstances, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks the issue.

In 2024, California became the first state to prohibit school districts from outing LGBTQ+ students to their families and others without students' consent. 

Federal and state lawmakers in favor of withholding students' gender identity information say that doing so is meant to protect them from abusive or unsupportive households. 

In a federal Congressional hearing last month, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., said that “forcing teachers to out every student every time they want to go by a different name or engage in some form of self-expression is an unrealistic expectation and disrupts the teacher-student bond.” It also could jeopardize a student’s safety, and lead to homelessness, she and others have said.

Those in favor of parental notification, however, say that district policies preventing teachers from sharing LGBTQ+ identities could hinder family efforts to get their children mental healthcare or other support. 

In Mirabelli v. Olson, teachers in the lawsuit also argue that district policies protecting students' gender expression violate parents’ due process and free exercise rights, and infringe on teachers’ rights to free speech and religious liberty. 

"The difficult and long lasting issues of gender nonconformity leave parents to suffer adverse consequences over a lifetime," wrote Benitez in the December decision that was overturned by the 9th circuit. Schools "have no personal investment in a student’s health" and "will not be exposed to a lifetime of a student’s mental health issues," as opposed to parents who will have "grief to bear alone" as a result of districts' pronoun and identity protection policies.

Student pronoun usage and related policies — such as whether teachers are allowed to use names different from students' birth certificates or under which conditions teachers could reveal students' LGBTQ+ identities to parents — differ drastically by state. The issue is a recent battlefront between the parental rights and LGBTQ+ rights movements, trailing on the heels of other issues sweeping the nation's schools in recent years, including LGBTQ+ topics in curriculum and transgender students’ participation in sports. 

"This is an issue of national importance and will likely need to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court," said Paul Jonna, special counsel for Thomas More Society, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the teachers, in a Tuesday statement.