(USNewsMag.com) – On Sept. 6, a temporary restraining order was issued against a new Chino Valley Unified School District policy mandating parents be told if their child requests to go by a different gender identity or different pronouns than the one they were assigned at birth.
The policy would also require parents to be notified if their child requests to use facilities such as a bathroom or participate in school programs such as a sports team that are different from the gender they were observed to be at birth.
The policy, which was adopted by the new conservative majority of the Chino Valley Unified School District school board in July, prompted California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta to sue the school district in August.
In the lawsuit, Bonta argues that the policy is in violation of various state protections for students’ civil and constitutional rights. Bonta also argued that so-called transgender students will be outed to their parents by the new policy and that they will be put in physical danger by the new policy.
The temporary restraining order issued by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Garza will suspend parts of the new policy from going into effect until the lawsuit proceeds in court. The judge stated the case must be “handled delicately going forward.”
The parts of the new policy that require parents to be notified about threats, suicide attempts, and bullying remain in effect as they are not impacted by the judge’s temporary restraining order.
Chino Valley Unified Board of Education President Sonja Shaw stated that the policy just means that parents won’t be the “last person informed,” as parents “have a right to know what is going on at school.
Oct. 13 will be the next hearing in the case.
Other California school districts that have conservative majorities on their school boards have also implemented similar policies or are considering them. On Sept. 6, the Rocklin Unified School District, which is located close to Sacramento, voted to approve a similar policy requiring parents to be notified within three days of a student asking to be identified as a different gender or pronoun.
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