Controversial California Law on Pronoun Changes Sparks Lawsuit and Business Exit

Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into California law that allows schools to keep secrets from parents regarding children’s pronoun changes. The law has been denounced by opponents who say it is a blatant violation of parental rights. The school has important information about the mental health of a student and this law encourages teachers to lie to parents about their kids.

Elon Musk has already announced that he will be moving SpaceEx out of California because of this law. Musk said this is the last straw. The Liberty Justice Center (LJC) has already filed a lawsuit challenging the new law. The LJC asserts that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

Attorney Emily Rae said, “PK-12 minor students, most of whom are too young to drive, vote, or provide medical consent for themselves, are also too young to make life-altering decisions about their expressed gender identity without their parent’s knowledge. But that is precisely what AB 1955 enables—with potentially devastating consequences for children too young to fully comprehend them.”

Governor Newsom called the lawsuit “deeply unserious” and not a legitimate legal claim. The governor insists that minors are still unable to legally change their names without parental consent and that parents have full access to educational records.

Lance Christensen of the California Policy Center said some districts use “dummy files” to change out names and pronouns for internal communication with students while maintaining the birth-given name for official communication with parents. Christensen also said he believes this law will be overturned:

“Gov. Newsom has okayed a bill that was based on the flawed logic that parents are dangerous and not to be trusted, and that the state or strangers are better positioned to deal with the difficulties of adolescence than parents,” Christensen said in a press release. “Hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements with victims of sex assault by public school employees is evidence that the opposite is too often true.”

“I hear that often that this is some sort of protection for these kids,” Christensen added. “We already have that, it’s called mandatory reporting. If a teacher knows that a parent is abusive, neglectful, there is a requirement for teachers or administrators to call law enforcement.

Once they do those things, they’re already out in public at the school. The only people that don’t know are the parents. It’s only a matter of time before the parents learn from somebody. Having a teacher or administration have open communication just seems like the most common sense way to deal with these complex issues.”

During an interview with The HighWire, Christensen said it is important to remember that the vast majority of teachers are good teachers. He referred to a small number of activist teachers who can take advantage of vulnerable children with the aid of this law and previous legislation that has been passed in the state:

“There are a handful of activist teachers in the school district,” Christensen said. “There’s enough of them out there that it only takes one or two kids that are vulnerable in a really delicate time in their life, going through puberty or confused like every teenager is. A teacher can take advantage of that. I often use another situation where if parents thought that teachers in schools were trying to proselytize their children or trying to convert them to their religion, they would be up in arms. This is no different. I don’t advocate for either. Kids go to school to learn and not to be secretly indoctrinated or transitioned behind a parent’s back.”

Representative Chris Ward authored the pronoun bill in California. He has received donations from Rady’s Children’s Hospital, Qualcomm, and the California Teachers Association (CTA). Rady’s Children’s Hospital provides “gender-affirming care.” Qualcomm partners with organizations like “Straight for Equality” that provide materials that say young transgender people “are our best teachers in alerting us to the reality that gender exists primarily between our ears.” The CTA is heavily involved in political campaigns around the state of California and has become ideologically captured, according to Christensen.

“Teachers, by and large, are good people,” Christensen said. “Most of them belong to the teacher’s union. They have been told if they don’t join the union, they will be sued and held liable for bad things that happen at the school. All of those things which are not true. When a teacher has to pay roughly $900 a year in dues, that money goes into a huge fund which pays for not just political campaigns and lobbying, but also for advocacy and other programs within the schools. Part of these programs are aligned with some of the gender issues and for some reason the CTA has become radicalized on this issue. They’re spending a lot of resources to elect people who will support this. Frankly, they’re alienating a lot of the teachers that don’t agree with what the teacher’s union is doing.”

Christensen talked about major issues with legislation in California, including bills that have reduced the age of consent to 12-years-old for medical procedures. This means a 12-year-old needs to consent for a parent to access his or her medical records. California has also become a sanctuary state for transgender youth who want to receive gender-affirming care against the wishes or knowledge of their parents.

Still, many think these policies, which remove parents’ rights in exchange for giving minor children more freedom to make their own decisions, are unique to California. Christensen cautions that this is a prevalent issue taking hold around the country.

“This is just one piece in a long line of terrible legislation and policies that start in Sacramento,” Christensen said. “What starts in California doesn’t end in California. A lot of this is being perpetuated in social media. If parents allow their kids to have unlimited or unfettered use of social media, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, they’re already being radicalized. The schools can just accelerate that process.”

While the CTA doesn’t seemingly have a direct financial benefit from advocating for these policies, the union has been pushing for them with funding from teachers state-wide who may not agree with the principles of the legislation.

“It’s a radical ideology, and they think they can move much of the discourse to say that teachers are replaceable,” Christensen said. “I think they’ve gotten to the part of the play where the hubris, the pride is so big They can’t see how terrible they’ve become as a union, so they just feel like they can do anything with impunity.”

Christensen said it is important for everyone to be attentive to what is happening on the state level around the country. He said the public should be active with their state legislators and present at the school board meetings to see how government schools interact with their children.

“This is not going to be isolated to California,” Christensen said. “People who think that this is just going to stay here and the wacky Californians are going to have to deal with it, I think, are foolish. They should be watching what’s going on in their own capitals and be regularly involved in their school districts and the policies they have there.

Anytime a parent feels that their child is not being protected the way they should be, or if they’re being radicalized at the school,then they should think about serious legal recourse, or they should pull their child out of that school. And denying them the funding that comes from their child. If this is the way public schools are going to treat kids, public schools might implode here very soon.

My kids are all in public schools right now. We were in a district where some really not-good things were happening in this arena. We picked up, and we moved 45 miles away. We could do that as a family, but a lot of families can’t. I’m an avid supporter of school choice and the ability for parents to make the best educational decisions for their kids.”