The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily reinstated a federal judge’s order that prevents enforcement of several California provisions limiting when public school employees may inform parents about a student’s gender identity without the student’s permission. The move came in response to an emergency application from challengers who argued the measures infringe on their constitutional rights, and it restores the district court’s injunction while the underlying litigation continues.
The three liberal justices on the court dissented from Monday’s action. A federal appeals court in San Francisco - the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - had earlier put the district judge’s decision on hold before the Supreme Court stepped in.
The case in California is one of multiple legal fights nationwide over how schools treat the privacy and support of transgender and gender-nonconforming students. The Supreme Court is also considering whether to accept a separate challenge to the practices of a Massachusetts public school district related to personnel actions and official support for students’ gender identities. In 2024 the court declined to take up similar challenges in Wisconsin and Maryland.
Recent Supreme Court decisions and actions have repeatedly placed issues involving transgender rights before the justices. The court last year upheld a Tennessee law banning certain gender-affirming medical care for minors and allowed a federal restriction on transgender service members in the military to stand. The justices also heard arguments on January 13 about state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that bar transgender athletes from participating on female sports teams, with the conservative justices appearing inclined to uphold those bans.
California’s contested provisions include elements grounded in the state constitution’s right to privacy, which state officials say can apply when students object to the disclosure of their gender identities to parents or guardians - sometimes due to concerns about hostility, rejection or violence. State officials have maintained that the provisions do not categorically prohibit sharing information with parents and can allow or require disclosure where nondisclosure would risk the student’s health.
The lawsuit challenging the California measures was filed in 2023 by Christian teachers in the Escondido Union School District in San Diego County and by two married couples who are devoutly Catholic. The teachers argued that the measures compelled them to act in ways that violate their First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. The parents said their constitutional rights were violated when their children expressed themselves at school as transgender boys without their knowledge or consent, asserting protections under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause regarding parental authority over a child’s care.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez in December ruled for the plaintiffs and issued an injunction against the California measures. In his decision Judge Benitez wrote that - in his view - a child’s gender incongruity is a health matter and that matters of a child’s health are subject to parents’ highest right and duty of care. He blocked provisions that would prevent school employees from informing parents about a child’s gender presentation at school or that would authorize use of names or pronouns that do not match the child’s legal name and natal pronouns without parental consent.
"A child’s gender incongruity is a matter of health. Matters of a child’s health are matters over which parents have the highest right and duty of care," Judge Benitez wrote in his ruling.
The 9th Circuit, however, put Judge Benitez’s order on hold on January 5, saying its preliminary review identified multiple errors in his analysis. The appeals court noted that a preliminary review of the record does not show that the state categorically forbids disclosure of information about students’ gender identities to parents without student consent.
With the Supreme Court’s temporary reinstatement of the district court injunction, the legal status of California’s protections is again paused as the parties continue to litigate the constitutional claims. The decision illustrates how disputes over school practices concerning transgender students are unfolding across different courts and could be subject to further review by the highest court.
Context and next steps
Litigation in this case will proceed in the lower courts while the Supreme Court’s action keeps the district court’s injunction in effect. The broader circuit split and the presence of related cases pending before the Supreme Court leave unresolved how state and federal constitutional protections will ultimately be applied in school settings.