Parents and teachers who oppose the state policies sued, claiming their parental, free speech and religious rights were violated.
The Supreme Court on Monday barred California from enforcing state rules that restrict when schools can notify parents about students who come out as transgender and requires teachers to use children’s preferred pronouns.
The court, on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines, allowed a federal judge’s ruling in favor of parents who oppose the policy on religious grounds to go into effect. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had put the judge’s decision on hold pending further litigation.
The court’s ruling focused on the parents’ claim that their rights under the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment were violated. The court also said they have valid parental rights claims under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Pretty sure you can faithfully practice your religion and not know what your kids are up to 24/7.
I hope California simply ignores this vile abortion of children’s human and Constitutional rights. What a despicable, inhuman shithole of a country. Americans need to start burying their criminal, pedophilic, predatory government. Literally.
It’s a chance to bring suffering and perhaps death to the weakest and most vulnerable, so there was little doubt how the Republican Supreme Court would rule.
While my gut says this isnt a great decision, I can’t think of another scenario where teachers/school are restricted in sharing information like this. I know sometimes teachers are designated reporters (have to report), but not aware of anything being restricted.
Is there some legal precedent for what California wanted to do?
If a child tells a teacher they are being abused by a parent it seems likely that there would be rules in place for the teacher to not share that information with the parent.
I’m pretty sure that’s part of being a designated reporter.
However, that’s not a uniquely parent-child policy and it’s really about the parents behavior. I’m not sure I would consider those the same thing.
Some legislation that is slightly similar is that college students need to sign waivers to allow their parents to access their grades. But that’s because in college students are adults and therefore parents don’t have inate rights to that information.
If you can’t trust the parents with this sort of information, and the child fears letting them know, should the child even be in the custody of those parents?
This. My first reaction to this article was “duh why wouldn’t the parent know?” Then I thought about it a little harder. Yea parents should know, and parents should be accepting / supportive. But shoulda coulda woulda doesn’t mean shit in the face of what is. If the kid hasn’t told their parents they likely fear the outcome…
Putting children in danger is a very Christ-like thing to do.
God damnit, this timeline sucks greasy orange balls.
I mean, the Bible includes a story about children who get mauled by bears as punishment for making fun of a bald man… So yeah that tracks.
Wow you can clearly see the brigading starting to appear here, undermining constructive discussion.
I’m not seeing the constructive discussion in your post.
When people vaguepost like that, 99% of the time they hold really abhorrent or unpopular opinions about something but are too chickenshit to just say what they feel because they can’t handle trying to defend themselves.
This is really bad and why we need to call out vagueposting because it’s just another tile in the great wall of societal atomization. There is a whole industry out there forming for parents who have been excluded from their children’s lives and empowering the parents into feeling like they’re the victims, despite the objective reality that your children’s behavior is a direct reflection of you’re doing as a parent.
Explain.
Vagueposting is a scourge on the internet. It teaches people to not have actual values and the idea that we’re all just separated niche groups who can communicate to each other via dogwhistles and gestures. It’s anti-social and lacks actual values or principles.
I’ve never had to face what it’s like to be transgender. But I am what most would classify as “bisexual.”
I didn’t tell my mother about my sexual orientation until I was pressured to by my extended family at the age of 17. My mum is a religious Conservative who believes the LGBTQI+ community is a bunch of brainwashed kids having sexuality forced upon them from TV shows and drag queens. I didn’t feel comfortable then, and it was scary, and the more I get to know my mum, the more I regret telling her. Now I know that every time she spews bigotry, she’s doing so with the knowledge that I’m in the group she’s targeting. Her knowing that her daughter, whom she raised and thought of as “normal” didn’t stop her from spreading misinformation and fear-mongering. She treats me well, but she doesn’t accept my whole self no matter how much she says she does. She still disregards my identity as nothing more than a trend for the mentally ill. She once told me, “Yeah, yeah, I know you think you’re bi,” meaning she doesn’t actually believe I am but that I have been brainwashed to think I am.
So even though it’s not the same experience, I understand what it’s like having an extremely personal piece of information about your identity – that you’re still getting used to yourself – being shared, with scary potential outcomes. I can imagine how even scarier it would be for someone in this situation to be transgender. While the general public has made some progress with the LGBTQI+ community, transgender people are still not safe.
Knowing about cases like Brianna Ghey (she was murdered by “friends,” not her parents) breaks my heart. I can only imagine how terrifying it is to just exist as a transgender person in this world. Just because someone is your parent, doesn’t mean that they will protect you any more than strangers or friends. Sometimes parents don’t have your best interests at heart and can be your biggest bully.
Having such danger forced upon a CHILD is absurd. If it were up to me, I would leave it up to the student involved whether or not to share this information with their parents. It’s not a medical condition, and children aren’t properties of their parents. While I understand that some would want to be there for their children, some don’t love their children unconditionally and would choose religion over their children any day. I think a student would know more about their parents’ likely response than the school staff (who only see the parents for brief moments) and the government. I don’t feel comfortable with this decision excluding the students’ autonomy. They’re not pets; they have a voice and personhood that should be respected.
Yeah I think there’s been a string push against the personhood of minors in recent decades. I don’t love all the decisions minors would make with more autonomy, but I’ve seen the consequences of full parental control over the lives of teenagers in trans teens, and while some have had good results, for others it’s the sort of thing that makes you just kinda stare at a wall for a bit. Over a decade ago, when I was freshly out a teenager stepped in front of a truck because of her parents’ response to her being trans, they sent her to conversion camps, they punished her self expression, and they guaranteed she had no hope for the future, then when their daughter died they didn’t even believe her words that they had killed her.
Children’s rights are complicated. No reasonable person thinks a 5 year old should have the ability to tell their parents that they want to live alone and have the state defend that right or to take the child without cause. But I think it’s equally ludicrous to say that a 16 year old should be blocked from getting a vaccine they want because their parents oppose it (when I was a teen this was a hot issue for the HPV vaccine). In fact I think any child old enough for abstract thought should have plenty of protections as a human including from their parents.
Hell even beyond rights to privacy from parents and the right to bodily autonomy, teenagers are often currently being aggressively hand held to the point they don’t know how to function outside their parents’ guidance at early adulthood. Adolescence is supposed to be a period of gaining rights, freedoms, and responsibilities, of learning how to be an adult but before the training wheels are off.
And yeah my experience as a trans millennial had me strongly relating to cis gay people my parents age. Lots of broken families and too many dead acquaintances, but with strong community and cultural bonds. The community meant I always had people and even in a new place I could find family pretty quick, I just had to be family to those who found me.
Also seconding the person saying that your mom is awful, like wtf, just because I’ve seen worse doesn’t mean I’ll ever get over the petty shittiness of some parents.
So uh… in your shoes, I’d for damn sure be very tempted to go full NC with your mom over that behavior. That is unacceptably toxic and hateful.
If I had less empathy and more guts, I would. I actually tried it once, and those around me accused me of being divisive, overly sensitive, and cold. They claim my problem is that I can’t handle other people’s opinions. I live abroad and had to break the no-contact approach to visit family, and my mum started bawling her eyes out begging for a renewed relationship.
The reasons I went NC were her Facebook-led brainwashing and her sending a petition link to ban gender-affirming care for children to my boyfriend (she says it was an accident but I’m infuriated that she sent that link to anyone, not just because it was sent to my boyfriend, unlike what others think). Even my boyfriend couldn’t understand at first that it’s not just about me seeing what she thinks, but about me having a relationship with someone spreading and causing harm to others. His solution was to just tell her that I don’t want to hear about her opinions on social media, but I asked her to choose between her dangerous conspiracy theories and our relationship. Her response was, “You know what my opinions are,” and so I replied, “Well then you’ve made your decision,” and blocked her. It was easy to be NC with her until it was time to visit my family. She later sent a message to my boyfriend, which included the phrase something to the effect of, “Maybe when she matures, she’ll learn how to be more tolerant.”
I’ve figured that the only way to maintain both a somewhat idea of peace and my sanity is to completely ignore all negative aspects of my mother. I pretend that I don’t know what her ideologies are and that whoever I went NC with is another person. It’s depressing, and whenever I think about it I get livid all over again, but I feel like I can’t escape it “because we’re family” 🙄. I never talk about politics or social issues with my mother, and I cut her off if she initiates such conversations. She tried to push to have her say but I tried not to fall for the trap and tell her, “If you say one more thing about this topic, I’m going to leave because I won’t allow myself to be in a place where my boundaries aren’t respected.” I’ve grown very good at just getting up and leaving, and yes people do think it’s rude and stubborn but I don’t care.
What “helps” me is knowing that she’s not intrinsically like this. She’s a very sensitive and kind person, but she’s been brainwashed and indoctrinated into falling for the propaganda of drag queens forcing transitions on children and TV shows manipulating children into homosexuality. When you dive deep into it, we have very similar values: protect the innocent and vulnerable; no one deserves to die for their identity; the government lies to you all the time, and so on. The difference is that my basis is Liberalism and scientific facts and her basis is religious teachings and Facebook comments. I’ve turned my focus from trying to debunk her claims and calling her out to treating her as a mindless sheep. I try to educate her on how to use critical thinking skills, how to spot red flags in the media, and different perspectives, philosophical arguments, and so on. I truly believe that one of the biggest obstacles for these people who don’t want to be evil but are complicit in evil acts is the lack of education and cognitive skills. I don’t have much hope for her ever being progressive, but I do hope I can at least get her to catch nonsense claims and predatory propaganda.
I know that she doesn’t want to be evil because she doesn’t wish harm in the way that neo-nazis do. She doesn’t want the LGBTQI+ community to be slaughtered and she understands that many of them need support, but she doesn’t think that it’s not a choice and doesn’t agree with encouraging that lifestyle (i.e. doesn’t want to legalise equal rights). She doesn’t want women who get abortion care to be stoned to death or for women to be forced to give birth if they’re dying, but she’s been taught to believe that women use it as a contraceptive, that foetuses have the same rights as people, and that abortion leads to fertility and psychological issues. She doesn’t want people to die from viruses, but she’s recently become scared of vaccines and sceptical of their development and side effects (she vaccinated us). She agrees that huge corporations are stealing her data and spreading misinformation, but she’s not ready to give up Facebook for it. She wants to feed the hungry, but she believes that charity is the only solution for it.
… I keep dreaming of a world where my mum doesn’t get brainwashed in the first place and becomes a progressive Liberal… 🤦♀️
What “helps” me is knowing that she’s not intrinsically like this. She’s a very sensitive and kind person, but she’s been brainwashed and indoctrinated into falling for the propaganda of drag queens forcing transitions on children and TV shows manipulating children into homosexuality
We all go through this roller coaster. Whether the brainwashed deserve sympathy, or can be changed, or if they should all get ejected like the tuna casserole that hid in the back corner of the fridge for a few months, isn’t a ‘hard answer,’ but a soft, fuzzy direction that we trudge towards, sometimes leaning a bit more one way, and sometimes the other.
I’m lucky, in that my parents don’t open their mouths about their hatreds anymore around me. A few shouting matches were worth it.
Oof, that sounds rough. But it also sounds like you’re doing the best you can to enforce your own boundaries where possible and practical.
Hopefully she’ll get de-programmed one way or the other at some point…
Removed by mod
What’s the problem here?
Schools shouldn’t be allowed to keep important information about students from their parents or legal guardians, let alone required by law.
Honor killings and similar behavior such a conversion camps put the child at risk. Which means the school actively endangered the child.
Unless the kids come from an abusive household where being gay or trans would be considered ‘sinful’ behavior so the kids don’t want to come out to their parents in any way.
And then the schools will narc on them.
Removed by mod
Children are young people, not the parents belongings. So, yes.
Interesting.
Shouldn’t it be left in the hands of those most affected, the students involved? Why are we letting older people decide if their personal information should be forcibly shared or not? Most of them are capable of knowing the gravity of their parents’ knowing, or at least they know if their parents would be supportive or not. I would ask the student, “Do you agree with me informing your parents about this and discussing it together?” Most of them would probably say no, and that’s okay.
Shouldn’t it be left in the hands of those most affected, the students involved?
You tell me. Children aren’t equipped to make the best decisions for themselves, which is why they don’t have the same freedoms afforded to adults.
Neither are the school staff and the government though. Ultimately, the students know their parents more than the others. It’s not necessarily about what is best for them, but what is the safest for them. We can’t assume the parents want the best for their children; some parents want the best for themselves or their god before their children’s interests.
(This of course given that students shall be provided mental health and professional care, not just left to wander this new phenomenon alone)
Faculty are better equipped than children to decide what’s best for the children, which is why they are trusted to make those decisions every day.
How do you determine when children get to decide what’s best for themselves instead of adults?
The court’s ruling focused on the parents’ claim that their rights under the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment were violated. The court also said they have valid parental rights claims under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
That is very troubling. I could have understood a First Amendment justification for the school and the staff, although they have to live with restrictions on what they say all the time.
Basing this on the parents’ free exercise clause means that the parents have a religious right to know the details of their children’s lives, which implies they have a right to force their religion on their children.
That is a monstrous claim, as children have a right to their own religion and exercise thereof under the First Amendment, too.
which implies they have a right to force their religion on their children.
Alito has pretty consistently implied that he believes religious freedom gives christians the right to impose their religion on others. Or that other people don’t things that christians disagree with is somehow infringing on their religious freedom.
And Thomas is just a piece of shit who has explicitly said he just wants to make liberals miserable. I don’t even think all the bribes actually influence his decisions, he would’ve been this terrible for free.
I agree, and they have more or less always been that way. If you wanted to shrink the reach of religion, you brought a case about the rights of Muslims or Native Americans. If you wanted to expand it, you brought a case about Catholicism.
I think what changed is that they were more roundabout about it and they tried to find some reasoning that got them where they wanted but not for the reasons they wanted. Sort of like the decision to let the baker discriminate, which was formally decided on the grounds that the State of Colorado discriminated against his religiosity.
Rights are essentially the mirror image of duties: the right not to be killed corresponds to the duty not to murder; the right to privacy corresponds to the duty not to intrude on people’s privacy; the right to free expression corresponds to the duty not to prevent that expression.
If parents have a right to know about the child’s transgender identity, who has the corresponding duty? The implication of this line of argument is that, at the very least, schools ought to snitch on anything a child does that the parent might want to know for religious reasons, whatever they may be.
If we take the duty as primary, we can flip it and ask what right corresponds to the duty of schools to tell parents about their child’s transgender identity, in case it’s something narrower. Sometimes a duty merely creates the right to expect that a public body behaves in an appropriate way. But that is then not in the least bit a religious matter but a civil one.
That is a monstrous claim, as children have a right to their own religion and exercise thereof under the First Amendment, too.
How does blocking a law that forbids schools from telling parents information about their children violate the child’s first amendment rights?
See, that’s what makes SCOTUS’s argument so insidious. If the right to be notified is religious in nature, then the conflict with the child that doesn’t want to tell the parents also is religious in nature. In particular, the child asserts the freedom to be free from the parents’ religion.
If the decision were based on the free speech rights of the school, or on concern for the well-being of the child, I could have understood. But basing it on the religious rights of the parents is in direct contradiction with the fact that the child clearly doesn’t want their parents to know, which means the child is aware the parents would disapprove for religious reasons, which means the child does not share that particular religious belief.
Did they say the right to be notified was religious in nature? Is this even about a “right to be notified”?
It looks like this simply allows faculty to inform parents of their child’s transgender status, not requiring them to do it.
From the post body:
The court’s ruling focused on the parents’ claim that their rights under the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment were violated. The court also said they have valid parental rights claims under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
So, yes, it is a religious issue. And I would have totally bought a framing that says the law infringes on the teachers’ rights or those of staff to notify the parents. I don’t know why they would frame it as the parents’ right. I suppose it’s because they couldn’t find school personnel willing to go to court over this.
I totally get your point, and you are right. But the court went out of its way to frame is as the parents’ right based on exercise of religion, which seems bonkers to me.
I suppose the post body might be wrong, too.
Conservatives view children as property. It shouldn’t be that surprising of a ruling; its why they love pedophilia.
Awkward title.
What do you have to do to come out as trans in school? Medical treatment or just ask for new pronouns? If it’s just pronouns, maybe everyone can switch a few times per semester and it won’t really tell the parents anything since almost all the notifications will be meaningless.
That only works for kids with accepting parents that aren’t the issue anyway. If you are cis and have hyper conservative parents, telling the school to change your pronouns to provide a smoke screen for actual trans students is going to cause you a LOT of trouble at home.
“Why are you trying to hide and protect Trans kids!?”
Parents generally have the right to know important facts about their children so they can parent well.
If your kid talks to someone else about something major and important to their lives BEFORE you, you have probably already fucked up as a parent and probably betrayed trust a number of times already. Or been a raging reactionary about something and you have to deal with the consequences of your own behavior by not being a part of your kid’s personal life.
Either way, if a kid is old enough to talk about mature subjects about themselves and their lives with anyone, they’re also old enough to decide who they feel safe enough to talk to.
This society broadly is riding a really weird line between if we’re protecting our kids to the point of treating them like they have no agency at all. Parents have a knee-jerk reactionary behavior that makes them decide protecting a child also means absolutely neutering their ability to make decisions and feel like humans. Make it make sense.
Yeah, I don’t see the issue here.
Having a law that forbids schools from sharing information about students with their parents is bonkers.
That’s true but if it results in danger or harm to the child, then the parents forfeit that right.
Parents have a right to know what their child trusts them to know. If a kid is withholding information about their identity from their parent, it’s because they fear their parents reaction. Parents do not have a right to know any piece of information at any time, nor should it be the responsibility of the school to report it to them.
Parents have a right to know what their child trusts them to know.
Lol.
Lol go fuck yourself
Removed by mod
Ah yes, “medical condition”. As if being trans is like having a cold or a busted knee or whatever.
It, uh.
That’s not how it works.
It’s how most of the cis world still thinks. Me choosing to wear a skirt instead of pants and choosing to paint my nails and go by “she” is a “medical condition” instead of just me being me. Because to an average cis male person, that would feel very uncomfortable, so they think there’s something “wrong” with us.
If a child isn’t telling their parents that they’re trans, it’s likely because their parents have shown that it isn’t safe for them to know. This ruling will put vulnerable children at higher risk of violence from their families, and remove school as a place they can get support safely when their parents are not safe. This ruling will kill trans kids, be it from violence or from suicide.
Absolutely. Parents cannot parent from the dark. It is imperative they’re aware of medical and mental conditions their children are grappling with so proper care can be taken.
If they aren’t telling their parents, there is probably a very good reason.
What do you think that reason is?
Many times, fear of:
- Being kicked out
- Being beaten
- Parents who will try to “make them” not be who they are
So on.
I saw this firsthand with friends in my high school days, and plenty of hard right repubs treat their kids the same way today.
So, IMO, very good reasons to be fearful.
You’ll often see in supportive spaces that many will recommend not coming out if they dont know what the parents response will be, or how severe it will be, due to these risks.
Removed by mod
Kids are inexperienced. And It is the job of the parent to protect them. I don’t know why this comment is so downvoted. It’s pretty rational.
Yeh some parents are arseholes but for the most parents do need awareness so they can have conversations and help their child.
Most 9-11 year olds are getting their world from TicTok. Is that the better alternative to a parent who wants to help?
Not all parents are bad.
It’s pretty rational.
Its really not. Its an ignorant view. To demonstrate…
Yeh some parents are arseholes
Thats putting “going to beat the shit out of them” in very mild terms.
but for the most parents do need awareness so they can have conversations and help their child.
Logically, the parents who have those conversations and are already accepting and open individuals don’t need a law to force this information going to the parents. Their child would come to them.
The only people being "informed* by this form of forced disclosure of individual identity are the parents who don’t have conversations with their children. Who aren’t open and accepting.
The ones who will be abusive toward their children as a result.
Parents who want to parent are free to not let their 9-11 year old get their world from TocTok.
Or it can result in the kid having the piss beaten out of them, like for one poor sod in my middle school class when his father found out he was gay do to a snitch of a teacher. Don’t worry though retribution was had.
Why do children not get any right to privacy at all, like they’re just pets or something? There are some who would be put in danger if the parents found out, and they’re smart enough to know this, otherwise they’d trust their own parents enough to just tell them instead of a third party.
parents’ claim that their rights […] were violated.
Their rights? What about their children’s!?
Do children really have the same rights as an adult though? Are parents not legally obligated to care for and to protect their children from access to firearms or a medical condition?
If a child gains access to a firearm would you say the “parent’s rights” were violated? Or is it just dangerous and against the law?
They should take care and protect them. No doubt about that. But their kids should still be allowed to be themselves.
That’s not what was presented to the Supreme Court. This wasn’t a ban on kids being transgender or having anything medically done outside of their household. It’s about hiding it from their parents. And the people crying foul about bad parents out there should probably take another look at eugenics then if they don’t like what some parents are doing.
What does not liking that some parents are abusive towards their children have to do with being pro eugenics?
And the people crying foul about bad parents out there should probably take another look at eugenics then if they don’t like what some parents are doing.
“If you don’t want abusive parents to find out their child is trans then you should consider adopting some Nazi ideology”
Jesus fucking Christ that came out of nowhere.
Holy shit… A kid is growing up and going to be feeling hormones for the first time. The last thing they’re going to want to do is be open book in front of god and everyone. Should their parents be there for them? Absolutely. But they shouldn’t be held at gun point to speak.
