Supporters of a controversial bill that would keep social gender transitions at school secret from parents are fast-tracking it through the California State Legislature, critics say.
The California state Senate Education Committee voted 5–2 on May 29 to pass the bill and send it to the Health Committee, but on May 30, state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat, moved to withdraw the bill and refer it to the appropriations committee instead. The next hearing is scheduled for June 10.
State Sen. Scott Wilk, a Republican who voted against the bill along with Republican state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, made a substitute motion to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee after several issues were raised about the constitutionality of the proposed bill. However, the motion was voted down.
“The bill has a direct impact on the fundamental rights of parents to oversee and guide the upbringing of their children. It should be properly heard in Senate Judiciary Committee before going to Senate Appropriations,” Mr. Wilk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Mr. Wilk said these tactics are commonly used to fast-track bills in the California Legislature, but few are aware of it.
“It’s how they operate,” he told The Epoch Times. “We’re supposed to be representatives of the people, but we don’t allow the people the opportunity to weigh in, and again, that’s all by design. It’s a regular occurrence. It is totally undemocratic.”
With a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature, Democrats can vote to waive the rules on almost anything, according to Mr. Wik.
“It’s gone on my entire 12 years that I’ve been here,” he said.
Assemblyman Chris Ward, a Democrat and author of the bill, did not respond to a request for comment.
Opposition
Aurora Regino, a parent in Chico, Calif., whose 11-year-old daughter socially transitioned at school, testified at the May 29 hearing. She criticized the school district for keeping her in the dark and told the committee that by the time she found out about the transition, her daughter had already discussed breast binding with the school counselor.“AB 1955 is misnamed. It should be called [The] School Secrets Act, because that’s what it is,” she told the committee. “This drives a wedge between the parent and child. I understand my daughter’s school continues to deceive parents to this day. Had I not found out what the school was doing to my daughter, she likely would have kept identifying as a boy. Like many children, she probably would also have moved towards irreversible medical interventions like a mastectomy.”
“If you want to prevent suicide in trans-identified children, you involve parents,” she said. “Dysphoric children need help from their parents, not secrecy from their school.”
Dr. Arthur de Lorimier, head of the Pediatric Gastroenterology Department at the University of California–Davis, testified that, as a medical doctor who treats trans-identified children, he has seen a massive surge in the number of gender dysphoric children.
“Until about a decade ago, gender dysphoria afflicted fewer than .01 percent of the population, and mostly young males. That figure began increasing exponentially right around the time schools started teaching that a person can be born in the wrong body,” he said. “Social media contributed to this massive surge in adolescents—mostly females—into adopting trans identities.”
Dr. De Lorimier said children who identify as transgender suffer from gender dysphoria, a condition listed under the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association.
“While a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices,” the report reads.
The Cass Review also found that gender dysphoria is often combined with other acute mental health issues that must be addressed.
Parents play the most vital role in the physical and mental wellness of their children and should be involved at the inception of the adoption of a child’s change in gender identity, according to Dr. De Lorimier.
Bill Support
Kristi Hirst, a co-founder of Our Schools USA, testified in support of the bill, claiming that informing parents of a change in a child’s gender identity at school without the child’s consent is harmful.A former teacher in the Chino Valley Unified School District—the first in California to pass a parental notification policy regarding gender identities in July 2023—said that “forced outings” have made the district the subject of “ridicule and mockery.”
“It damages our community, its image and also affects our home values, which are closely tied to the reputation of our school district. My family has started looking into other school districts. Parents did not ask for a school board to dictate how we raise our children,” she said.
Some trans students feel “belittled, uncomfortable and unsafe” at school and don’t feel they should be forced to tell their parents who are unsupportive of LGBT people, according to the teacher.
“Students and their families cannot survive another year of this not being resolved by the state because the extremists won’t stop wasting public money on their political crusades. The time to resolve any ambiguity is now,” Ms. Hirst said.
Shay Stevens, a high school teacher at one of the 12 districts that passed parental notification policy, told the committee that parental notification policies have affected the “culture and safety of students at her school.
“We encouraged our students to come to the board meeting and be part of the democratic process. Inevitably, many in our LGBTQ student community felt compelled to attend. We sat in our school’s library listening to grown adults berate our most vulnerable students by referring to them as abominations, accusing them of pedophilia, and calling them all sorts of dehumanizing names,” she said.
“Only one identifying student spoke at the podium amid sneers and whispers. As I looked around the room, many of the kids sat in silence, tears streaming down their faces, unable to find the courage to stand up and defend themselves against those who are supposed to protect them. Encouraging those students to attend that meeting was the greatest mistake of my career.”
Since then, Ms. Stevens said, there has been “one discriminatory policy after the next” including banning all flags except the American and state flag and attempts to ban mental health services for students.
“It has become blatantly clear that this push from ... outside political propagandists has nothing to do with parental rights and everything to do with discrimination against our most vulnerable populations,” she said.
Legal Questions
Erin Friday, a technical witness, attorney, and mother whose daughter has desisted from identifying as transgender, fielded questions from senators and provided clarification on legal issues.The 14th Amendment states that parents are responsible for the care, custody, and control of their children, she said, “so this law is unconstitutional as written, and this statement in the bill that says this is just declaratory of existing law is a falsehood,” she testified.
Ms. Friday emphasized that under current state guidelines, schools are advised to keep students’ transgender identities secret unless the student says it’s OK to reveal.
“So, it is the child that is making the decision—the child who could be 4, 5, 6, the child who could be suicidal, the child who could have other mental health issues,” she said. “The child is the one dictating whether this is revealed, however, everyone at the school knows, except for the parents—the parents, who are the only ones who are able to keep them safe.”
Ms. Friday said Ms. Regino’s daughter was told by school staff “to lie to her own mother” about her transgender status.
“That’s what happens at school,” Ms. Friday said.
A co-leader of the organization Our Duty, Ms. Friday led a coalition of other parental rights groups, including Protect Kids California and Moms for Liberty, at a press conference at the State Capitol Building in Sacramento, California, preceding the hearing.
She told The Epoch Times that pushing AB 1955 through the Assembly as a gut-and-amend bill sidesteps robust public debate and catches opponents off-guard.
“They know that this is an unpopular bill,” Ms. Friday said. “They are practically admitting that Californians are against school secrets by ramrodding it through the Legislature.”
A gut-and-amend bill is usually introduced as a simple bill with no opposition that will easily pass in the house of origin, “and then, once it gets through that first house—in this case, the Assembly—they gut and amend it, so they change every word in that bill. They’re not allowed to do that under rules, but they do it anyway.”
Ballot Initiative Fails
A statewide ballot initiative to require parental notification of gender identity changes at schools, launched by a coalition of parental rights groups called Protect Kids California, has failed. The grassroots group announced in a May 28 statement that it amassed about 400,000 signatures, falling short of the 546,651 required within 180 days.The coalition alleged that Mr. Bonta failed to uphold his duty to Californians and violated the law when he provided a factually inaccurate, misleading, and biased title to a proposed ballot initiative—rather than a neutral title and summary as required under state law.
The group lost its fight in trial court for a new title and summary but planned to appeal the decision, according to Ms. Friday, who supported the measure.
The original initiative, called the “Protect Kids of California Act of 2024” and intended for the November ballot, would have required schools to notify parents if their child changes his or her gender identity at school, protected the integrity of girls’ sports by prohibiting boys who identify as girls from competing in them, and banned the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgery on minors.
Even though the initiative ultimately failed to make the ballot, the grassroots effort was an “amazing feat,” considering the group gathered more than 400,000 signatures despite a misleading ballot title, according to Ms. Friday.
The grassroots effort raised close to $200,000 from about 1,200 which amounts to less than 50 cents per signature, a fraction of the amount standard ballot measure committees spend, she said.
“I’m really proud of our efforts with the ballot initiative,” Ms. Friday said. “It shows me how many Californians are against the transgender ideology that has invaded our state. If we could do something like this with grassroots with no money with a such a terrible title and summary, imagine what we would have done if we had any type of funding.
“We proved that Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike are against gender interventions on children, they are against boys being in girls’ sports and bathrooms, and they’re against school secrets. The state knows this and that’s the reason why this bill was a gut-and-amend.”
Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley School Board president, told The Epoch Times that gut-and-amend tactics are a “desperate attempt, obviously, to still control the narrative.”
“This is what they do. They play games,” Ms. Shaw said. “We will fight it. I have already talked to our attorneys. The battle will be long and drawn out, unfortunately.”
