A federal appeals court sided with California parents on Friday, finding that a state policy barring school employees from informing parents of their children’s gender transition is unlawful.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted the city of Huntington Beach and a group of parents a bid to halt the enforcement of AB 1955, a California policy that bars school officials from telling parents about their children’s gender transitions, such as their use of different names and pronouns, at school. The appeals court panel used the Supreme Court’s March emergency docket ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta to find that the California policy “likely deprives [the parents] of their constitutional rights.”

With the March order in Mirabelli, the high court ruled 6-3 in favor of blocking a similar policy by invoking its 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which upheld parents’ rights to opt their children out of LGBT materials at school and found that not permitting such an option violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

“Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children,’” the Mirabelli ruling reads. “The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”

The appeals court panel included U.S. Circuit Judges Daniel Collins, an appointee of President Donald Trump; Kenneth Lee, a Trump appointee; and Lucy Koh, an appointee of former President Joe Biden.

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Tagged: Transgender BACK TO HOMEPAGE