California is suing Chino Valley School District over its policy of alerting parents if their child identifies as transgender. Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit on Monday, and is seeking a court order to immediately stop the district’s policy, which he said “tramples on students’ rights.”
“The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home,” Bonta, who is considering a gubernatorial run in 2026, said in a statement on Monday. “Our message to Chino Valley Unified and all school districts in California is loud and clear: We will never stop fighting for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students.”
Sonja Shaw, the district’s school board president, told the Washington Free Beacon that Bonta’s retaliation is unsurprising.
“Once again this is government overreach and the political cartel of Bonta, [Gov. Gavin] Newsom, and [State Superintendent Tony] Thurmond is using their muscle and taxpayer dollars to shut parents out of their children’s lives,” she said.
Chino’s school board passed the policy 4-1 in July. The policy requires schools to notify parents if their child experiences gender confusion, wants to change their pronouns or names, or uses sex-segregated facilities that do not match the child’s officially listed sex. Bonta said at the time that the policy would “strip [students] of their freedom, violate their autonomy, and potentially put them in a harmful situation.”
Students are “currently under threat of being outed to their parents or guardians against their express wishes and will,” which the lawsuit alleges “violates the California Constitution and state laws safeguarding civil rights.” The state announced earlier this month that it would investigate possible infringements on students’ civil rights in Chino Valley, as well as in surrounding districts that have adopted similar policies.
Schools around the country are enacting gender identity policies. Most districts shield a child’s gender confusion from their parents, such as Maryland’s Montgomery County, which allows schools to help children create gender support plans without parental consent. Some, like Chino Valley, and districts in North Carolina, Indiana, and Utah, have supported policies that require teachers to tell parents if their children experience gender confusion.