A federal court has ruled that public schools in California may not keep parents in the dark about their children’s gender identity at school, delivering a major victory for parental rights advocates.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued a permanent injunction Monday granting a permanent injunction against California Department of Education policies that prohibit schools from informing parents their children are using different names and pronouns without the child's consent.
In his order, Benitez directed state officials and school employees to stop “misleading the parent or guardian of a minor child in the education system about their child’s gender presentation at school."
The ruling makes clear that school staff may not engage in practices such as “directly lying to the parent,” “preventing the parent from accessing educational records of the child,” or “using a different set of preferred pronouns/names when speaking with the parents than is being used at school.”
The injunction further bars school employees from referring to a student by a name or pronouns that differ from the child’s legal name and natal pronouns when a parent or legal guardian has formally objected to such usage.
Judge Benitez also ordered education officials to include explicit guidance in training materials and state-approved instruction reinforcing these requirements.
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” the court-mandated statement reads.
“Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence. These federal constitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.”
The ruling comes after California lawmakers enacted legislation in 2024 that prohibited school districts from requiring disclosure of a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents without the student’s consent.
The case was brought as a class-action lawsuit by two public school teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West, who argued that the state’s policies conflicted with their sincerely held Christian beliefs regarding gender and honesty.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has since asked the court to stay the injunction, warning that allowing the order to remain in effect during the appeals process would disrupt schools statewide.
“If the Orders are allowed to stay in effect before the Court of Appeals has a chance to review them, they would irrevocably alter the status quo and will create chaos and confusion among students, parents, teachers, and staff at California’s public schools,” the state argued in its filing.
