Less than 48 hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that prohibits California school districts from enacting ‘forced outing’ policies that expose transgender students to their parents, one of the districts at the heart of the debate has hit back with a lawsuit.
Chino Valley Unified School District filed a lawsuit against the governor and the state on Tuesday, arguing the law violates the constitutional rights of parents. The district was the first in California to enact a transgender notification policy last year, spurring an ongoing legal challenge by state Attorney General Rob Bonta.
CVUSD Board President Sonja Shaw told KNX News that school officials shouldn’t be allowed to “withhold vital information about a child” from parents.
“No parent drops their child off thinking that any teacher or staff member is ever going to keep a secret from them,” she said. “We drop our kids off to learn reading, writing, math and how to have critical thinking skills.”
Shaw also disagreed with Bonta’s assertion that the policy violates students’ privacy rights.
“When it came to students’ privacy, the laws were put in place to keep [students safe] from the government, not the parents, and they’re twisting it against the parents and that is wrong,” she said.
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Shaw argues the district's policy has safeguards built in to protect children from potentially abusive situations. However, community members have expressed concerns that the policy is detrimental to LGBTQ+ students.
In the first three months after CVUSD’s forced outing policy was passed, a crisis hotline for LGBTQ+ youth received 648 calls from affected students, parents, and staff.
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