Some school districts may need to adjust their policies after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that favors parental rights over privacy protections for transgender youth.

The ruling, which is being heralded as a major victory for parental rights groups, reinstates a permanent injunction in a class-action lawsuit that states school employees cannot withhold information from parents about their child’s gender presentation at school.

LGBTQ+ advocates say the ruling does not mandate “forced outing” and that California’s SAFETY Act, a 2024 law that prohibits school districts from creating policies requiring staff to disclose students’ gender identity without student consent, remains intact.

The Supreme Court’s ruling relates to Mirabelli v. Bonta, a lawsuit brought by two teachers in the Escondido Union School District who said the district’s non-disclosure policy contradicted their deeply held religious beliefs and their free speech rights. In October 2025, the case became a class-action lawsuit, meaning the results of the case would apply to all California parents and teachers.

In December, a California district court issued a permanent injunction in the case, prohibiting all schools’ non-disclosure policies. The State of California filed an appeal and was granted a stay, delaying implementation of the injunction.

On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that stay after attorneys for the Thomas More Society, which is representing the plaintiff teachers, filed an emergency application. This decision only applies to the parent class.

Although the State of California’s appeal has not been heard and there is not a final ruling in this case, David Mishook, partner at F3 Law, said the ruling indicates the direction the court is leaning.

“The Supreme Court ... made clear its thoughts on the ultimate question, which is that any policy that prohibits staff from disclosing to parents a child’s gender identity ... does violate parents’ rights,” Mishook said on a March 4 episode of ACSA’s Legislative Lunch Break.

He said non-disclosure violates parental rights in two ways: free exercise rights as it relates to the religious upbringing of children and due process rights related to medical decisions.

“Both of those together create a situation where staff cannot hide from parents or intentionally lie to parents about their child’s gender identity at school,” Mishook said. In February, the CDE reiterated that there is “no California state law or CDE policy that precludes parents’ rights under FERPA to inspect their child’s education records, even if they contain information related to gender identity,” according to a news release. ACSA Executive Director Dr. Edgar Zazueta joined the Legislative Lunch Break to share what he has been hearing from ACSA members about this case.

“The most important question for our school leaders is now what?” Zazueta said. “I know that’s a place where we’re going to have to push on our state. Given this complex legal landscape — what’s the guidance that we’re going to give our folks as they try to operate schools?”

The California Department of Education’s “Protections for LGBTQ+ Students: AB 1955” guidance page has published a notice, as required by the permanent injunction, stating that “Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence.”

LGBTQ+ rights advocates point out that this ruling does not mandate that staff disclose a child’s gender identity to parents and that existing California laws that protect transgender students — such as using students’ preferred pronouns, offering gender-neutral bathrooms, and ensuring sports teams and clubs are open to all students — remain in place.

“These protections exist for one reason: to keep students safe and ensure schools remain places where young people can learn and thrive without fear,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang, in a March 2 statement responding to the Supreme Court ruling. “To be clear — today’s decision does not impact California’s SAFETY Act, which prohibits school districts from adopting policies that forcibly out transgender students. The SAFETY Act remains in full effect, and we will continue defending it.”

The Thomas More Society said the ruling was a historic victory for religious liberty and due process rights of parents.

“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society and Partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP, in a March 2 news release. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back.”

Mishook said the ruling only applies to state and school district policies that contain language that expressly states or implies that staff cannot disclose a student’s gender identity to a parent. Such policies are now “unenforceable,” he said.

“This is about prohibition of disclosure ... It’s about not misrepresenting to parents when parents directly ask,” he said. “Staff are going to need to be honest.”

He advised that schools reach out to students who were previously told that their gender identity would be kept confidential.

“Those schools need to go to those children and tell them what is happening and help those children navigate what is the real possibility that at some point those parents may ask and the school will have to disclose,” Mishook said.

In a client news brief, the law firm Lozano Smith said the Supreme Court’s emergency ruling in favor of the parent class members, “make the parameters of the injunction for all practical purposes applicable to all California school districts.”

According to the law firm, school district and county offices of education should review their policies and practices to ensure compliance with the Mirabelli injunction relative to:

• Parent access to records and information regarding their child’s gender identity at school,
• Adherence to parental instructions regarding name and pronoun use for their child at school, and
• Ensuring that the required LGBTQ+ training provided to teachers in grades 7 through 12 specifies the rights of parents.

In terms of school district policies and practices, the law firm points out that schools still have a responsibility to prevent child abuse.

“The Supreme Court’s opinion in Mirabelli notes the ability under the injunction to lawfully ‘shield children from unfit parents by enforcing child-abuse laws and removing children from parental custody in appropriate cases’ and also comments on the potential viability of ‘precluding gender-identity disclosure to parents who would engage in abuse,’” according to the legal brief written by Partners Sloan Simmons and Kyle Raney, and Associate Christopher Datu with Lozano Smith.

Find additional content on the Resource Hub at https://content.acsa.org/supreme-court-reinstitutes-permanent-injunction-enforcing-parental-rights/.