ACLU misses the mark: When protecting students means silencing teachers

The ACLU's op-ed in the Daily Journal's Aug. 13 edition about the recently passed Assembly Bill 1955 neglects to address the fact that not all medical professionals agree that schoolteachers should not be allowed to tell their students' parents, without the student's permission, that their child has indicated a desire to change their identified gender. See also, "Obscure federal act at the center of challenge to LGBTQ+ parental notification ban," Daily Journal, 7/19.24 p. 1.

As evidence for their narrative, the authors of the op-ed cite a former student who believed that "my family would not have understood what was going through my mind." But the student had a teacher who listened to them about "who I was as an individual," giving them time "to come out to my family when I was ready and at my own time."

I hope that all of us have had at least one teacher who would listen to us without judgment or consequences; who would exercise their in loco parentis discretion about if and when parental notification was appropriate. But AB 1955 prohibits school districts from requiring that.

While the bill finds that "[t]eachers and school staff can provide crucial support to LGBTQ+ young people and can play an important role in encouraging them to seek out appropriate resources and support" (section 2(k)(1), it does so based on the presumption that parental involvement requested by school personnel constitutes unwanted "interference." (section 2(j))

Thus, it prohibits school districts and a host of others from: "enact[ing] any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that would require an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil's sexual orientation . . . to any other person without the pupil's consent, unless otherwise required by state or federal law." (section 6(a))

In its ham-handed effort to save kids from their parents, AB 1955 prohibits school districts and others from promulgating policies and regulations that require teachers to use their best judgment about when a parent should be notified about something, whether or not the student consents.

In Mirabelli v. Olson, 691 F.Supp.3d 1197 (S.D. Cal. 2023) the Court cites at length from a declaration submitted by a clinical psychologist with 40 years' experience, who describes herself as a transgender woman. She says: "to place teachers in the position of accepting without question the preference of a minor and further direct such teachers to withhold the information from parents about their minor child is hugely problematic" (Id. at 1208), and she concludes: "By facilitating a social transition at school over the parents' objection, a school would drive a wedge between the parent and child. Similarly, facilitating a double life for some children, in which they present as transgender in some contexts but cisgender in other contexts, is not in their best interest. Id. at 1209.

AB 1955, although probably naïvely well-intentioned, would do more harm than good because "[c]ircumventing, bypassing, or excluding parents from decisions about social transition undermines the main support structure for a child or adolescent who desperately needs support. Ibid. What's best for these kids and their teachers should not be decided by the Legislature, Governor or lawyers.