After two hours of protest and emotional testimony, the Assembly Committee on Education approved a bill Wednesday afternoon that would prevent California school boards from adopting a parental notification policy that requires school staff to “deport” trans students to their parents if the student requests to use other methods. use pronouns or another name.
Assembly Bill 1955, sponsored by Assemblyman Chris WardPassed the Senate earlier this month, D-San Diego received support from Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, and the committee’s other Democratic members. Muratsuchi is a co-sponsor of the bill. The bill now heads back to the General Assembly and, if passed, to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The committee hearing room was nearly full Wednesday afternoon, with hundreds of people from across the state lining up to voice their support or opposition to the bill. There were more citizens opposed to the bill than in favor of it, although more than sixty people on both sides were present to express their opinions.
Republican lawmakers Heath Flora, R-Ripon, and Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, did not support the bill.
Hoover expressed concern that the bill “encourages parents to remain in the dark.”
“How can parents best support their student if he or she remains in the dark?” he asked Ward.
Ward, a gay member of the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, grew increasingly emotional as he tried to explain how personal the coming out process is for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people. A student’s choice to come out as transgender at school before doing so at home can be an important part of their journey, even if their parents are supportive.
“Coming out is a difficult experience,” Ward said. “I think what we’ve put together here is that this somehow prevents, hinders or otherwise makes it difficult to have these conversations with a young person and their parents.”
“Even if it’s a loving relationship,” Ward said, pausing to hold back tears, a parent is “the last person you want to turn away… When you jump forward in an individual’s timeline, do that an incredible amount. of damage.”
Ward confirmed to the committee that his bill would not prohibit a teacher from sharing this information with a student’s parents. On the contrary, it would make it illegal to force them to do so.
The policy “has torn the fabric of (California’s) communities,” Ward said, “and has put teachers in a very uncomfortable position, and has turned school board meetings into an absolute circus, and away from the core mission of having to talk . about the bread and butter to fulfill the mission of that district.”
‘Forced outing’? School administrators say no
LGBTQ advocates and supporters of the bill who oppose the parental notification policy call it “forced outing policies.”
Supporters of the bill say the rhetorical change is unfair.
“We hear all the time that this is an ‘out policy,’” Sonja Shaw told The Bee before the hearing, in which she was the opposing party’s key witness.
Shaw is the president of the Chino Valley Unified School District, which last August became the first district in California to adopt the policy. In the year since Chino Valley adopted its policy, the district has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Attorney General Rob Bonta. (Bonta’s wife, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, a former school board member and sitting member of the Education Committee, supported the bill Wednesday).
Shaw said the policy only applies to students who specifically request a name or pronoun change, or request to use facilities that do not reflect their biological sex — not if a teacher suspects the student is transgender, or this hear from someone else.
“I think it’s really bizarre that you’re saying that a child can come out to thousands of his peers and hundreds of staff members, but not to his parents,” she said. ‘No one reports a conversation… The child is already coming out. And as a school district official, we have a very, very big responsibility to ensure the safety of that child, and things need to be done to ensure that they and the other children are safe if this is going to happen. at school.”
Thirty minutes before the hearing, Republican lawmaker and right-wing rabble-rouser Bill EssayliR-Riverside, led an event outside the Capitol with Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) and parents’ rights activists, including Shaw.
“There is a false narrative that there is an agenda to somehow hurt or harm children based on their gender ideology,” Essayli said. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. There is also a false argument that this is intended to forcibly expel children, but that is not true either.”
Essayli echoed Shaw’s point: that parents be notified only if the student requests a formal change.
“If the school is going to be involved in changing (a student’s) gender, you better believe the parents are going to be involved too.”
‘There is nothing wrong with being transgender’
But the bill’s proponents tell a different story — saying the parental notification policy serves as a smokescreen for a rising anti-trans movement gaining momentum among the Christian Right and parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty.
Kristi Hirst, a former Chino Valley teacher and one of Ward’s witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing, cited the increase in calls to an LGBTQ crisis hotline operated by the Rainbow Youth Project.
After the Chino Valley School Board adopted their policy last August, Rainbow Youth Project launched a California hotline for people concerned about the parental notification policy. The hotline received 5,934 calls, and about 1,500 of those calls were specifically about Chino Valley, the nonprofit’s executive director Lance Preston said.
“A lot of young people are calling in distress,” Preston told The Bee on Wednesday. “They are afraid of being outed, and afraid of being rejected by their families if that does happen.” Some students attending Gay Straight Alliance meetings became concerned that the school would tell their parents they were attending.
Preston said the hotline also receives calls from parents and teachers who are unsure of their rights, and of the students who called, more than 80% report that there have been increased incidents of bullying at school since the introduction of the parental alert policy . One young person was evicted from his home and another said he experienced physical violence.
Preston said it is not simply the adoption of the policy, but the rhetoric used by community members who support it, that could harm trans children.
For example, trans children who are called “delusional” “are creating a crisis as much, if not more, than the policy itself.” School then becomes a place of fear instead of a safe place to learn.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Assembly Democrats shared this sentiment.
“First of all, there is nothing wrong with being transgender,” said a visibly emotional Congresswoman Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, who wore a pair of Pride flag earrings at the end of the bill’s discussion.
“It’s not a pathology. I didn’t realize how emotional it would be to sit here saying what I’m saying. We are talking about children and people. There is really nothing wrong with children being who they are.”
