Lynn La LYNN LA • AUGUST 29, 2023
The battle over LGBTQ+ students in California public schools and parental rights is heating up again — and this time Attorney General Rob Bonta is going to court.
Bonta on Monday announced that he has filed a lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education over its recent policy to require district teachers and staff to notify parents if a student requests to identify as a different gender. In a statement, Bonta said the policy runs afoul with the state constitution and civil rights laws, including equal protection and a right to privacy.
- Bonta, at a press conference: “Let’s call this policy what it is: It is a forced outing policy…. It tramples on students’ rights. It presents students with a terrible choice: Either walk back your rights to gender identity and gender expression, to be yourself, to be who you are. Or, face the risk of serious harm.”
LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality California applauded the move, and plans to hold a rally today at the state Capitol in response to what it considers a rise of anti-LGBTQ+ threats and policies. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins of San Diego, LGBTQ Legislative Caucus Chairperson Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton and other Democratic legislators are expected to attend.
On the other side of the debate: Protect Kids CA — which says it promotes “all children’s rights and well-being” — held a rally on Monday at the Capitol to promote three proposed initiatives it filed Monday: One would require schools statewide to notify parents if their student identifies as transgender, another would ban female transgender students from girls’ athletic teams and a third would ban children from medically transitioning. The group must collect more than 546,000 signatures each measure to get them on the already-crowded November 2024 ballot.
- Jonathan Zachreson, a Roseville City School District board member and president of Students First California, which is backing the initiatives: “These initiatives are necessary because we have a Legislature that’s out of touch with most Californians, so we’re taking these issues directly to the voters.”
As CalMatters education reporter Carolyn Jones and state Capitol reporter Alexei Koseff explain, under the state’s local control system, school boards have a wide degree of freedom to enact their own policies. Chino Valley Unified isn’t alone in testing the limits; Anderson Union High School District, Murrieta Valley Unified and Temecula Valley Unified have adopted similar policies for transgender students, with others having proposals in the works.
The escalating battles between several California school boards and Democratic state officials are also one outcome of the California GOP targeting local school boards as the backdrop for culture war flashpoints. Through its “Parent Revolt” program, the party encouraged candidates last year to run for school boards to surface concerns over critical race theory, gender identity and book bans — and also to develop potential contenders for other elected offices.
At a state Capitol rally last week, one of those new school board members — Chino Valley Unified’s school board president, Sonja Shaw — labeled the ongoing conflict as “a spiritual battle.”
Speaking of elections: Lance Christensen, who ran on parental rights in his unsuccessful 2022 bid to unseat Tony Thurmond as state schools chief, may run again in 2026. He announced an exploratory campaign committee over the weekend.
If Christensen does run again, however, it won’t be against Thurmond, who is subject to term limits and is thinking about running for governor in 2026 instead.
