CA Sues School District For Adopting Trans 'Outing' Policy

CALIFORNIA — California school districts that implement policies to "out" transgender and nonbinary students are now feeling the state's wrath.

On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit to immediately halt the enforcement of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education’s mandatory gender identity disclosure policy. The policy requires CVUSD schools to inform parents, with minimal exceptions, whenever students request to use a name or pronoun different from that on their birth certificate or official records. The policy also mandates parental notification if a student requests to use facilities or participates in programs that don't align with the child's sex on official records.

The CVUSD, located in San Bernardino County, was the first California district to implement such a policy this summer with a 4-1 vote on July 20. Murrieta Valley USD and Temecula Valley USD in Riverside County, and Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, followed suit by adopting the identical policy.

A CVUSD spokesperson on Monday said the district is working with its legal counsel to review the lawsuit and its contents.

All of the districts were contacted for comment about the lawsuit. This story will be updated with responses.

Bonta said the CVUSD policy violates the California Constitution and state laws safeguarding civil rights, and "has already caused and is threatening to cause LGBTQ+ students with further mental, emotional, psychological and potential physical harm."

“Every student has the right to learn and thrive in a school environment that promotes safety, privacy, and inclusivity — regardless of their gender identity,” Bonta said in a released statement. “We’re in court challenging Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy for wrongfully and unconstitutionally discriminating against and violating the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students. The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home. Our message to Chino Valley Unified and all school districts in California is loud and clear: We will never stop fighting for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students.”

Bonta argues the CVUSD policy infringes on several state protections that safeguard students’ civil and constitutional rights:

• California’s Equal Protection Clause: The CVUSD policy unlawfully discriminates against students who don't, in the view of the school board, "align" with their gender.
• California’s Education and Government Code: "Education is a fundamental right in California, and California Education Code Sections 200 and 220 and Government Code section 11135 also ensure equal rights and opportunities for every student and prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. The policy violates these fundamental anti-discrimination protections."
• California’s constitutional right to privacy: California’s constitution protects the right to privacy, including informational privacy and autonomy privacy. The CVUSD policy mandates that teachers and staff "out transgender and gender-nonconforming students against their wishes or without their consent," which violates privacy rights.

The lawsuit also alleges the CVUSD policy places transgender and gender-nonconforming students in danger of "imminent, irreparable harm from the consequences of forced disclosures" if their parents or guardians are not supportive and/or possibly abusive.

According to CVUSD spokesperson Andrea Johnston, the policy does protect transgender students by requiring staff to notify child protective services/law enforcement if the child believes they are in danger or have been abused, injured, or neglected due to their parent or guardian "knowing of their preferred gender identity."

"In these circumstances, CVUSD staff will not notify parents or guardians, but rather, wait for the appropriate agencies to complete their investigations regarding the concerns shared by the student," Johnston said Monday.

The lawsuit also asserts that CVUSD's motivations in adopting the policy were to discriminate against transgender and gender-nonconforming students.

"In discussing the policy before its passage, board members made a number of statements describing students who are transgender or gender-nonconforming as suffering from a 'mental illness' or 'perversion,' or as being a threat to the integrity of the nation and the family. The Board President went so far as to state that transgender and gender nonbinary individuals needed 'non-affirming parental actions so that they could 'get better,'" Bonta's office said.

Prior to filing the lawsuit, Bonta announced opening a civil rights investigation into the legality of the CVUSD policy. In July, Bonta sent a letter to CVUSD Superintendent Norman Enfield and the Board of Education cautioning them of the dangers of adopting the policy. In the weeks that followed, Bonta issued statements after board decisions by Anderson Union High School District, and Temecula and Murrieta Valley USDs to implement copycat policies.

When the TVUSD adopted its policy with a 3-2 vote on Aug. 22, Board President Dr. Joseph Komrosky taunted Bonta, Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

"If [the policy] was illegal, it would have been shut down by now," said Komrosky, who voted in favor of the policy. "They [Bonta, Newsom and Thurmond] haven't done anything because they can't. They just want to troll our school district and I'm tired of it."

TVUSD Trustee Steven Schwartz voted against the policy and said it put the district in legal peril.

The mandated notification is a "slippery slope" for teachers and staff, said TVUSD Trustee Allison Barclay, who also voted against the policy. She said it forces educators to choose between adhering to state law or adhering to the district policy.

After Bonta announced his investigation into the CVUSD, the district's Board President Sonja Shaw sent an Aug. 4 emailed statement to Patch.

"This is a ploy to try to scare all the other boards across California from adopting the policy," Shaw said. "We have united all over California and people from all over the nation are linking up to protect our kids and ensure parental rights. They did us a favor and just revealed more of their agenda and exposed their intentions. I won’t back down and will stand in the gap to protect our kids from big government bullies."

During its Aug. 10 MVUSD governing board meeting in which the parental notification policy was adopted with a 3-2 vote, district attorney Dina Harris warned the board there was a legal risk. She recommended that vagueries in the policy be firmed up, prompting a board directive that district staff develop a process on how to roll out the mandate.

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