An appellate court ruled on Thursday that California cannot enforce its law banning schools from forcibly outing students to their families while a lawsuit against the legislation continues.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled in favor of a temporary block on the bill, a decision that the United States Supreme Court later upheld. SCOTUS then sent the case back to the 9th Circuit.
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The Circuit Court’s decision mirrored much of the language from the SCOTUS decision and posited that parents “have an affirmative constitutional right” to know everything about their children’s gender expression at school, the LA Times reported.
The legislation in question, Assembly Bill 1955 (also known as the SAFETY Act), strengthened existing California law prohibiting school districts from enacting any policy requiring staff to disclose information about a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to anyone without the student’s consent.
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In 2023, at least 10 California school districts adopted policies requiring school staff to out students to their potentially unsupportive parents without the students’ permission, according to the ACLU Northern California. All of these policies seemingly violate longstanding California law and Department of Education guidance.
A.B. 1955 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in July 2024 amid right-wing opposition. During the Assembly debate at the time, critics of the bill called it a “blanket ban” that infringes on “parental rights.”
Several teachers sued, and in 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) opened an investigation into California’s Department of Education (CDE) over the law. The DOE claimed the law violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
“The agency launched today’s investigation to vigorously protect parents’ rights and ensure that students do not fall victim to a radical transgender ideology that often leads to family alienation and irreversible medical interventions,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in her statement at the time.
Mary Ziegler, a parental rights laws expert and a professor at the UC Davis School of Law, told the LA Times that the temporary block is “arguably significantly more extensive than the Supreme Court has spelled out.”
“Trans issues are hot-button issues… but this kind of parental rights litigation has much broader ambitions,” Ziegler said, “some of which have nothing to do with LGBTQ people. There’s an ambition to transform parental rights period, and the easiest way to do that is to focus on trans issues.”
Ziegler said the final decision on the law’s fate could have massive implications for parental rights in general. “Reasonable people can disagree about what involvement parents should or shouldn’t have in this context,” she said. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s about this complete overhaul of the power parents have. And children are vanishing from the story.”
According to The Trevor Project, 28% of LGBTQ+ youth report experience homelessness, with 40% reporting that they were kicked out or abandoned by a parent or guardian due to their LGBTQ+ identity. The National Network for Youth reports similar findings, with 40% of LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness, and familial conflict being the primary cause.
A study from the University of Connecticut found that a third of youth who were forcibly outed had a greater likelihood of experiencing major depression as well as low family support. Additionally, more than 65% of youth said being forcibly outed was “highly stressful.”
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