In a blow to LGBTQ+ rights, a federal court ruling concluded that teachers have the right to out LGBTQ+ children to their parents. 

On 22 December, US district judge Roger Benitez ruled that federal law allows school employees to notify parents of “gender incongruence”. 

Benitz added that the decision to inform parents of their child’s gender identity rests with the teacher.

The order also prevents school districts from “misleading” parents and prohibits employees from “directly lying to the parent, preventing the parent from accessing educational records of the child, or using a different set of preferred pronouns/names when speaking with the parents than is being used at school”. 

The state appealed the decision on the same day of the ruling, with an appeal court issuing an application for stay – a formal request to pause legal proceedings – to postpone the order from taking effect. 

In the appeal court paper, state attorney general of California, Rob Bonta, wrote that the ruling, if it hadn’t been halted, would “create chaos and confusion among students, parents, teachers, and staff at California’s public schools”. 

Bonta added that it would go against “longstanding state laws that protect vulnerable transgender and gender nonconforming students”. 

The current state law bans school districts from requiring parent notification, following a handful of school districts across the state that implemented policies forcing teachers to notify parents if students have expressed non-cisgender or non-heterosexual identities.

It also prevents school districts in California from firing teachers who choose not to disclose the sexuality of their students to parents.