The state of California vs. parents

California has become the first state in the nation to ban school regulations requiring teachers to inform a child’s parents about his or her “gender identification change.” According to Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law is designed to “keep children safe while protecting the critical role of parents” in their child’s development. He goes on to say that it “protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations.”

This is breathtakingly disingenuous, considering that the law will only enable “inappropriate” interventions on the part of teachers with an agenda. Just ask Los Angeles mom Jessica Konen, whose prepubescent daughter was introduced to the concepts of bisexuality and transgenderism at her school’s euphemistically named Equality Club. The girl subsequently began “socially transitioning” at school while her mother was initially kept in the dark. Teachers provided literature and applied the school administration’s “gender support plan,” including instructions on “chest-binding” as the girl entered puberty.

It so happened that the year before, in 2021, Abigail Shrier had written a viral exposé of those teachers based on leaked remarks they made at a California Teachers Association conference. These comments revealed deliberate plans to subvert the influence of parents who might object to a child’s new “identity.” It even included precise instructions to middle school teachers who wanted to run LGBTQ clubs like the one where Konen’s daughter was indoctrinated. These instructions included giving the clubs generic names like “Equality Club” or “You Be You” (avoiding the more common “Gay-Straight Alliance”). The teachers boasted about electronically surveilling their students so they could recruit new members when attendance ran low. If kids did Google searches showing curiosity about LGBT issues, they got an invitation. In one teacher’s own words, sometimes that’s what it took to “get the bodies in the door.”

Teachers were also encouraged to keep no club records to maintain plausible deniability if parents asked outright whether their child was a member. They could always shrug and vaguely say, “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?”

The law is being pitched as a way to “protect” children who could suffer repercussions at home if they “came out” to their parents. This treats all traditionally minded parents the way we normally treat abusive parents—as a potential danger to their own children. But this is only normal in a political context where parents can be denied the ability to foster or adopt if they refuse to affirm their potential future child’s potential “preferred pronouns.” Not bending the knee to the brave new regime? Not fit to parent.

But it can get still worse, as we see in the case of Chico Unified School District mom Aurora Regino. She was left unaware of her daughter’s “transition” even though her daughter wanted a school counselor to make her aware. Too embarrassed to initiate the conversation at home, the 11-year-old girl had been quietly seeking help in the wake of her father’s death while Regino battled cancer. Without permission, the counselor then proceeded to share her private identity struggles with other school officials who voted to leave Regino in the dark—the one person this child actually wanted help “coming out” to. Choice devours itself, once again.

On X, California activist Erin Friday names Regino and Konen in a fiery thread denouncing the new law. Friday is not a Christian or a conservative. In fact, she’s a Democrat. But she is increasingly recognizing that her own party doesn’t want to listen to people like her—ordinary parents who aren’t about to let strangers ideologically groom their vulnerable children behind their backs. As Friday notes, a child’s desire to “change gender” is induced by social “transition.” It doesn’t take studies to predict that the more a child’s peers and authorities enforce cross-gender behavior patterns, the more anxious he or she will become to obtain hormones or surgery. This was backed up with data in the WPATH files.

Conservatives have an opportunity to welcome disillusioned Democrats like Friday. While we may not align on other very important issues, we extend a hand of friendship and encouragement to anyone sacrificing time and energy to fight grave evil—especially in states like California where we may well face a losing fight. If nobody else stands up, it won’t stop in California. To quote one of the teachers at that conference, “If you want to bring a new world into existence, it seems a good place to start is with other people’s kids.”