California law against forced outing blocked by 9th Circuit

A California law meant to prevent school employees from notifying parents about a transgender student’s gender expression without consent remains blocked after the U.S. 9th Circuit ruled it was likely unconstitutional. The decision keeps in place an earlier Su

For now, California will not be able to enforce its rule aimed at stopping what supporters call “forced outing” of transgender students—after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals kept a legal block in place.

The U.S. 9th Circuit’s ruling on Thursday held that Assembly Bill 1955 was likely unconstitutional. keeping the state from enforcing the measure while the fight over its legality continues. The case had already been sent back to the appellate court after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a temporary block on the law, leaving it in limbo for further review.

The law. passed in 2024. was designed to prevent school employees from notifying parents about a student’s gender expression without the student’s consent. Supporters say it protects vulnerable students from being exposed to families who may be hostile to their trans and nonbinary children. Opponents argue the policy does the opposite of protection—compelling schools to “mislead” parents and leaving them “shut out” of critical decisions.

The 9th Circuit previously had allowed the law to stand while California fought a district court injunction from a case in Santa Ana. But Thursday’s decision kept that earlier block alive. signaling that the court saw constitutional stakes in how the state can balance students’ privacy with parents’ access to information.

Legal experts said the appellate court’s latest ruling appeared to expand “parental rights” in a way that could reach far beyond transgender issues. The question is not only what information schools can share, but how courts define what parents are entitled to know and when the state can step in.

At the heart of Thursday’s ruling was an account of what parents should be told. The 9th Circuit panel—quoting extensively from a related March Supreme Court decision—found that parents “have an affirmative constitutional right” to be told if their children swap names or pronouns. change how they dress. or otherwise alter their gender expression at school. The panel also said it heard no arguments that the California families who brought the challenge “are ‘unfit parents’ who present a risk of abuse if they are provided with information about their children exhibiting symptoms of gender dysphoria.”.

The ruling landed in a broader legal landscape where multiple cases are already moving toward the Supreme Court. Several challenges target local or state policies that prevent schools from disclosing information about children’s gender identity and expression to parents. Many. including the two related California cases. have been championed by conservative legal activists explicitly in the name of parents’ rights.

America First Legal called Thursday’s decision a “major victory.” The organization is an advocacy group co-founded by senior White House aide Stephen Miller, and it helped argue the case.

The Supreme Court’s March decision traced back to a lawsuit brought by two California teachers against the policy, brought on their behalf by the Thomas More Society—a conservative public interest firm named for the 16th-century Catholic saint.

Mary Ziegler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law and a specialist in American parental rights laws, warned that the ruling could reshape legal reasoning well beyond LGBTQ disputes. She said the decision was “arguably significantly more extensive than the Supreme Court has spelled out.”

“Trans issues are hot-button issues … but this kind of parental rights litigation has much broader ambitions, some of which have nothing to do with LGBTQ people,” Ziegler said.

“There’s an ambition to transform parental rights period, and the easiest way to do that is to focus on trans issues.”

Both the supporters and critics have framed the stakes in family terms—who gets information, who gets a say, and what happens to students caught between those competing claims.

Conservatives, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, argued that California’s approach intrudes on families. In a concurrence to the Supreme Court’s March decision. Barrett wrote that “Under California’s policy. parents will be excluded — perhaps for years — from participating in consequential decisions about their child’s mental health and wellbeing. ” adding that “Thus. the parents are likely to suffer irreparable harm if California enforces its policy while this litigation winds its way through the courts.”.

Liberal justices disagreed with the timing and the scope of what the policy demanded. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. “I have no doubt that parents have rights. even though unenumerated. concerning their children and the life choices they make. ” but she argued California’s policy could cross a constitutional line by depriving parents of information tied to their children’s health and well-being.

Ziegler said the differences between camps are not just about how much involvement parents should have.

“Reasonable people can disagree about what involvement parents should or shouldn’t have in this context,” she said. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s about this complete overhaul of the power parents have. And children are vanishing from the story.”

The case now sits at a pivotal point: a law designed to shield students from unwanted disclosure can’t move forward in California yet. but the court’s language and reasoning could influence how judges treat parental rights in fights that reach far beyond school hallways and beyond gender expression—into questions as wide-ranging as school vaccine mandates and whether parental discipline justifies state intervention through child protective services.

California AB 1955 forced outing transgender students 9th Circuit U.S. Supreme Court parental rights school policy Stephen Miller Thomas More Society Mary Ziegler