August 11, 2023
While Murrieta Valley parents were celebrating a win for parental rights, State Attorney General Rob Bonta today denounced the Murrieta Valley School Board’s decision to implement a mandatory gender identity disclosure policy similar to one adopted in Chino Valley last month that prompted a civil-rights investigation.
The Murrieta Valley policy, adopted by the board Thursday night in a 3-2 decision following a lengthy and often-divisive public hearing, essentially requires school staffers to inform parents if a student requests to be identified as a different name or gender.
The policy requires notification when a student:
- requests to be identified or treated as a gender other than their biological sex;
- accesses sex-segregated school programs and activities that don’t align with their biological sex, or
- requests to change information contained in their official or unofficial records.
The policy was proposed by school board President Paul Diffley and clerk Nicolas Pardue. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times prior to the vote, Diffley said, “As a parent, I would want to know about everything that concerns my child’s mental health and physical health while they’re at school. I don’t think there should be anything hidden because I have a fundamental right as a parent to bring up my child.”
Opponents, however, decried the policy as a violation of students’ rights, particularly those who don’t feel safe discussing gender issues with their parents. Board member Nancy Young, who voted against the policy, called it discriminatory and a violation of state law. She also said it threatens to exacerbate a already higher-than-normal suicide rate among transgender students.
Chloe Cole, a well-known nineteen-year-old detransitioner, traveled to speak in favor of the parental notification. Cole, a Californian, is a 19-year-old American activist who opposes gender-affirming care for minors and supports bans on such care following her own detransition. In three minutes she told the following story:
“I identified as a transgender boy between the ages of twelve and sixteen. I am now 19-years-old. My teenage years and the trajectory my entire life has been altered by the delusional ideas that were pushed on me from a young age.
“Reality is that sex can’t be changed. It’s an immutable characteristic. We are born as one of two sexes, but regardless of gender there are an infinite number of personalities.
“My misunderstanding that I was a boy could have just been a harmless part of my growing up as a young woman. instead, it was weaponized by doctors to push a political agenda to boost their own careers. My Health care provider brags about performing the most mastectomies on healthy teenagers in the state. My story comes up first on Google search for Kaiser Gender Clinic. I started puberty blockers and sex hormones at 13 and had surgery at 15. I still face complications to this day. At this very moment, I am wearing bandages to cover the weeping and bleeding from my areolas.
“My parents were presented with two options from the doctors. Either allow my transition or blood would be on their hands,” She continued. “I talked to my dad this week and he told me if he had heard a story like mine before transition, he would not have allowed any of this to happen to me. “Parents need to know If their child is adopting a trans identity at school. Transition is not harmless. There are kids like me getting seriously injured. Parents are not useless. They have the tools to work through hardships with their families, and they deserve to be given the truth.
“As an educational institution, you have the responsibility to stand for truth. Your policies need to reflect reality and not opinion. You have to stand against ideologies that are held up by low quality research.
“You would be doing a great disservice. To the families you serve to turn a blind eye to them.”
Bonta, in a statement Friday, called the policy harmful to the well- being of LGBTQ+ students.
The question is, do students rights supersede parental rights?
One parent spoke about how students are not allowed to get a tattoo because it’s permanent, but, the state wants them to be able to make permanent changes to their bodies, including sterilization, without their parents’ knowledge.
“I am deeply disturbed to learn another school district has put at
risk the safety and privacy of transgender and gender nonconforming students by adopting a forced outing policy,” Bonta said in a statement. “My office remains committed to ensuring school policies do not target or seek to discriminate against California’s most vulnerable communities. California will not stand for violations of our students’ civil rights.”
Bonta said that the well-being of transgender students relies critically on protecting their ability to choose how and when to inform others, as they are exposed to high levels of harassment and mistreatment in school and their communities.
Another woman spoke and said, “The kids are being told to not trust their parents and to instead trust their school and their friends. No one is against their kid’s decision to be whatever sexual orientation they want to be. The world is not against you. What we are against is anybody who tries to take away our role as parents. Anyone who is lying to our kids and telling them that they love them more than we do. If you are feeling suicidal, you need your parents more than ever, seek out a therapist. Keeping secrets makes it worse. Lastly shame on the teachers unions For acting like you have our kids best interests at heart. Last, I heard unions were organized for the benefit of the teachers for working conditions, Job protection, fair wages, et cetera. No one hired the unions to tell us how to parent our children.”
The attorney general last week announced that his office was opening a civil-rights investigation into the Chino Valley Unified School District for potential legal violations due to an identical gender identity disclosure policy.
City News Service contributed to this story.
