The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review an appeal brought by parents who sought to challenge a Florida public school district's policy that prevents school staff from informing parents about a student's name or pronoun changes without the student's permission.
The appeal was filed by the parents of a middle-school student in Tallahassee who self-identified as nonbinary while enrolled in the district. A lower court dismissed their lawsuit, and the Supreme Court's decision not to take the appeal means the dismissal remains in place.
The parents argued that school officials treated their child as nonbinary and concealed that status from them, a practice they said violated their parental rights under the due process protections of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The high court did not provide a written opinion in declining to hear the case.
Legal observers and families have continued to bring disputes over school policies supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students to courts across the country. Last week, the Supreme Court turned away a related case originating in Massachusetts.
The high court has previously declined to hear comparable challenges from other states, including Wisconsin and Maryland, leaving lower-court rulings intact in those matters as well.
At the same time, the Supreme Court has been active on several major matters related to transgender rights. In March, the court blocked California measures that could have limited sharing information with parents about the gender identity of transgender public school students when the student had not given permission. In that decision, the court's 6-3 conservative majority said the California policies likely infringed upon due process rights and the religious beliefs of Christian parents who brought the case.
Separately, the court has addressed other challenges to transgender-related policies. In June 2025, it upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. And in January, the court appeared prepared to uphold state laws that bar transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams.
The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Florida appeal leaves intact the lower-court outcome and maintains the current legal landscape where similar disputes are being resolved through a mix of lower-court rulings and selective review by the high court.