By Flor Blanco and James Bradley, Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko
COMMENARY DECEMBER 23, 2025, SAN DIEGO, CA.–Yesterday the Ninth District Federal Court Roger T. Judge Benitez issued a landmark ruilng rivetting the California public school system. The ruling ended the parental secrecy policies that allowed school staff to withhold information from a parent about their child’s gender transition. His ruling issued a mandate to include the following statement in all public school training relating to gender identity:
Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruance. Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when their student expresses gender incongruence. These federal consitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.
Also included in the ruling was a mandate for school staff to refer to a student by a name and gender pronoun based on the student’s public school record.
This announcement followed a decision a few days earlier by HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to ban hospitals from gender transition related procedures, sale of breast binders to minors, and removal of gender dysphoria from the 504 diability designation.
Together, the actions signal a shift away from aggressive gender affirmation policies supported by medical, social welfare and public institutions in the state. Earlier in the year, the American Psychological Association held their international conference in Los Angeles. On the docket was a bi-lateral discussion of medical professionals for and against aggressive gender affirmation treatments. The speakers shunning gender affirmaiton treatments, pointed to gaps in evidence supporting the continuation for such treatments.
Soon after, a study by the Federal Trade Commission presented negative impacts to gender transitioning services for minors, flagging it as violating consumer protection laws. This view was contested in a recent panel discussion held this September at the Los Angeles LBGTQ Center Youth Leadership event. There, a handful of pro gender affirmation panelist believed that such policies reflected a trend that would quickly change when friendly leadership would return to government.
Immediately after the ruling by Judge Benitez, CA Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an appeal to stay the court decision, reflecting Sacramento’s intent to dig in their heels on this issue. Included in the appeal is Bonta’s argument that the ruling would give rights to parents to alter the learning environment throughout the entire school, instead of placing that responsibility in the hands of the school and local district. This is an interesting statement, given that the state of California did not think that local school boards were adept enough to decide upon appropriate curriculum, and handed that responsibility over to the state with the signing of CA AB1078 in 2023. Yet, the state appears to be standing firm on its effort to protect children expereincing gender incongruence, likening the act of school staff disclosing a student’s gender incongruence to parents as a form of discrimination, as quoted by Rob Bonta on a California government website:
You have the right to disclose – or not disclose – your gender identity on your own terms, regardless of your age. Your school, whether public or private, doesn’t have the right to “out” you as LGBTQ+ to anyone without your permission, including your parents. Under the California and U.S. constitutions, you have a protected right to privacy, which includes the right to keep your sexual orientation, gender identity or that you are transgender private (what courts call a “reasonable expectation of privacy”). In other words, you have the right to control to what extent and to whom you disclose highly personal information about your sexual orientation or gender identity. This means that even if you are “out” about your sexual orientation or gender identity at school, if you’re not ‘out’ to your parents at home, and you can reasonably expect that they’re not going to find out, then school staff can’t tell your family that you are LGBTQ+ without your permission. Being open about your sexuality in school doesn’t mean you automatically give up your right to privacy outside school.
The ruling of Judge Benitez sheds a light of hope on the California public school system, which has suffered a great loss from declining student enrollment. Although mulitple factors are aligned with the decrease in student enrollment, a steady decline did occur near the adoption of the California Child Healthy Youth Act (CHYA) in 2016, when fluid gender identity was first adopted into sex education courses in California, as shown in the below graph. The decline is projected to continue onward after 2025 and can possibly result in a loss of another 1 million students by 2031 according an article by Chad Aldeman, a columnist who analyzes school finance.
The court decision issued by Judge Benitez offers relief to parents who have become subject to potential custodial loss of their children. This California law, allows custodial rights to be removed from parents due to disagreements between parent and child on issues related to gender identity. This was the case with Abigail Martinez, who lost custody of her child even after complying with her daughter’s preferred gender transition. Tragically, Martinez’s daughter committed suicide under the guardianship of the state. Custodial battles involving children with at least one parent living outside of California, are also offered some relief when biological parents disagree with the raising of a child who experiences gender incongruence. Some parents impacted by these state laws believe California’s pro-affirming tactics mirror abduction. These examples of intra-state legal conflicts regarding gender affirming care and custody raise California’s laws to a national level, causing national issues. A podcast on California’s Judicial corruption by the California Parents Union, dives deeply into this problem. Perhaps the pressures of parenting adolescent children could be slightly lifted by Judge Benitez’s ruling.
Despite a California issuing a 1.5 RFP for a grant supporting transgendered care as recent as November 2025, the judgement also has the potential to divert tax dollars from schools set asside to promote transitioning to elsewhere. Parents and school staff unhappy about the downward trend in academic test scores in schools hope that the funds would go towards academics. Perhaps this may cause a turnaround in school enrollment, should the state of California finally let go of its persuit to parent our children.