A third California school district has approved a policy requiring schools to inform parents if their children begin identifying as a new gender.
The Orange Unified School District Board approved the new policy Thursday at a contentious meeting that lasted late into the night.
The vote, which came just before midnight, saw the majority vote in favor of the parental notification policy despite three board members being absent. The approval of the policy was reportedly greeted by cheers from the audience.
The new policy requires schools to inform parents if their child requests to go by pronouns that do not match their biological gender or a name that is different from their legal name. Parents would also be notified if a student requests to use the restroom or locker room of the opposite gender.
“All we’re asking for is to please just let us know what’s happening with our kid,” one mother told KTLA. “I’m for this policy not because I’m against gay or LGBT. I have three LGBT people in my family, and I am very, very religious, but we just want to be notified as parents.”
Another mother said the policy “singles out these kids as problems,” adding that the policy is “not fair and is illegal.”
At least two other California school districts have adopted similar parental notification policies around students’ gender identity.
The Murrieta Valley Unified School District south of Los Angeles adopted its policy last month at a spirited school board meeting.
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“We have young kids who are flirting with these different ideations about what their gender is at a very young age because right now the state of California, for whatever reason, is intent on allowing minors to alter who they are physically,” Murrieta school board member Nicolas Pardue said at that meeting.
Murrieta’s policy mirrors a policy adopted in July by the Chino Valley Unified School District just east of Los Angeles, the most high-profile district to adopt such a policy.
This month, California’s attorney general responded to the Chino Valley district’s decision to adopt the policy by launching a “civil rights investigation into potential legal violations” by the district.
The Chino Valley school board president responded by accusing state officials of “overstepping their boundaries.”
Just nine days later, a judge handed the state an initial win by temporarily blocking the Chino district’s policy.
The fight over Chino’s gender notification policy will be back in court on October 13.
During the July meeting at which Chino Valley district adopted the policy, California’s superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond was escorted out by security after he showed up to argue against the policy.
Gender identity and parental notification in school policies have become a hot-button issue in recent years. Parents across the country have expressed concerns about children being allowed to adopt a new gender identity behind their parents’ backs.
Some have gone as far as suing their school districts, claiming their child was allowed to identify as a different gender behind the parents’ backs.
