Education Department Says California’s Efforts To Hide Students’ ‘Gender Transitions’ From Parents Violate Federal Laws

The Trump Administration is ramping up pressure on California to end a state policy that prevents schools from notifying parents about their children’s gender identity without the student’s consent, saying that it violates federal law. California’s policy prevents school staff from informing parents if their children start to identify as a different gender. The policy, known as AB 1955, was signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2024. The Department of Education said Wednesday that the restriction violates federal law. The secretary of education, Linda McMahon, said in a statement, “Our investigation found that the California Department of Education egregiously abused its authority by pressuring school officials to withhold information about students’ so-called ‘gender transitions’ from their parents. Under Gavin Newsom’s failed leadership, school personnel have even bragged about facilitating ‘gender transitions,’ and shared strategies to target minors and conceal information about children from their own families.”“Children do not belong to the State — they belong to families. We will use every available mechanism to hold California accountable for these practices and restore parental rights,” she said.The department said that California school districts “went to great lengths to conceal children’s ‘gender transitions,’ including by petitioning the student management software company used in many California schools to create features that hide student name changes and pronouns from parents.”It also said that the state “aggressively targeted” school districts that did not shield information about a child’s gender identity from parents, noting that California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, sued school districts that did not comply with the policy. The department offered steps that California can address the violations by affirming that school districts are in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, FERPA, by letting parents review information about their children’s gender identity. The state would also have to let parents know about “gender support plans” in place for students, and include content approved by the Trump Administration in its LGBTQ cultural competency training. In October, California officials said that the “plain language” of AB 1955 shows that there is “no conflict” with FERPA. The state has sought to defend its policy, noting that it is not a total ban on such disclosures about a child’s gender identity and only applies if students do not consent to the information being shared with their parents. A spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, Liz Sanders, told Politico that the department believes it “addressed the essence of this letter in previous communications.”If California declines to take the steps laid out by the federal government, it could put the $8 billion in education funding the state receives at risk. The issue of whether or not schools can block staff from telling parents about their child’s gender identity is also facing scrutiny in federal court. In December, a federal judge blocked the policy, finding that it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. However, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed that ruling, because California does not “categorically forbid disclosure of information about students’ gender.’ The judges said that the lower court misinterpreted the policy. The law firm that represented the plaintiffs in the case filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court.

Education Department Says California’s Efforts To Hide Students’ ‘Gender Transitions’ From Parents Violate Federal Laws

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