Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

Two religious parents filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Anne Arundel County Public School District of Maryland for allegedly “socially transitioning” their child with a masculine name and pronouns without notifying them. The parents, identified in court documents only as John and Jane Doe, are being represented by America First Legal (AFL), an anti-LGBTQ+ conservative legal organization. The parents want school officials to start misgendering their child and for the judge to declare the school district’s trans-inclusive name and pronoun policies as illegal. The school district has declined to comment on the case. The lawsuit, filed in Maryland’s U.S. District Court, says the school began referring to the child with a masculine name and pronouns at the beginning of the school year at the student’s request. The parents only became aware of this last December 10 when the school emailed the parents about a lab experiment happening in class the next day. The email used a male name to refer to their child, The Baltimore Banner reported.

The staff member who sent the email reportedly tried to unsend it and then sent the parents a message saying that the email wasn’t intended to go to them, the lawsuit said. The following day, the parents allegedly spoke to the staff member who “admitted to lying in the emails” and informed the parents that their child had requested the masculine name and pronouns, the lawsuit adds.

The parents reportedly told the school to start using their child’s legal name, but school official refused. The principal allegedly told the parents that school staff are trained to refer to students by their “preferred names and pronouns in the school setting,” the lawsuit claims. The district’s policy says students have “the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that correspond to the student’s gender identity.” The parents say that their religious beliefs dictate that “God creates each person as male or female, that sex is based on biology rather than internal self-perception, and that sex cannot be altered.”

Jacob Ogles at The Advocate:

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte just signed legislation requiring schools to out transgender students to legal guardians. The new state law effectively reverses a 2024 state Supreme Court decision that upheld students’ right to privacy. The latest conservative legislation adds to a series of anti-LGBTQ+ policies under consideration in the Granite State. The GOP-controlled legislature in June passed a bathroom bill that could allow businesses to separate bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and other accommodations by biological sex. While Ayotte has vetoed similar bills and other LGBTQ+ matters in the past, the Republican signed the privacy bill. Ayotte announced her signature on the bill alongside a slate of others passed this year, identifying SB 430 in a press release simply as legislation “relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents and legal guardians.” The statute requires state-credentialed educators to respond to parents' written inquiries regarding any material information relating to their child enrolled in school. That means teachers must disclose information even if a student asks for the matter to be kept confidential or fears for their own safety at home. The decision disappointed education and LGBTQ advocates.

Disgraceful from New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R).

She signed student safety-harming forced outing bill SB430 into law.

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Jacob Ogles at The Advocate:

The Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from a Kansas school district over its trans-inclusive policies. Claiming support for “parental rights,” the U.S. Department of Education said it will partner with the Justice Department to pressure Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools over privacy protections for trans youth. That includes lawsuits demanding a change in policy and the withholding of federal funding from the district. “Thanks to this new partnership, the Department is working more closely than ever with DOJ to ensure schools are protecting children and respecting parental rights,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a statement on the department's website. “We are taking important steps to ensure that cases like this are resolved efficiently in partnership with our DOJ counterparts. By streamlining processes and listening to parents, we will reject dangerous political ideologies that harm children and get back to focusing on learning in the classroom.” The two federal agencies entered a joint agreement last month to “bolster and expedite the enforcement of our nation’s parental and civil rights laws.” That includes advancing the administration’s view of civil rights in ways that allow discrimination against transgender people.

The Kansas school district has a policy aimed at preventing the forced outing of transgender students, explicitly directing “that school personnel 'should not disclose information that may reveal a student's transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others, including parents,'" Reuters reports. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the policy tramples on the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s well-being.

Molly Sprayregen (She/Her) at LGBTQ Nation:

An appellate court ruled on Thursday that California cannot enforce its law banning schools from forcibly outing students to their families while a lawsuit against the legislation continues. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled in favor of a temporary block on the bill, a decision that the United States Supreme Court later upheld. SCOTUS then sent the case back to the 9th Circuit. The Circuit Court’s decision mirrored much of the language from the SCOTUS decision and posited that parents “have an affirmative constitutional right” to know everything about their children’s gender expression at school, the LA Times reported. The legislation in question, Assembly Bill 1955 (also known as the SAFETY Act), strengthened existing California law prohibiting school districts from enacting any policy requiring staff to disclose information about a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to anyone without the student’s consent. In 2023, at least 10 California school districts adopted policies requiring school staff to out students to their potentially unsupportive parents without the students’ permission, according to the ACLU Northern California. All of these policies seemingly violate longstanding California law and Department of Education guidance. A.B. 1955 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in July 2024 amid right-wing opposition. During the Assembly debate at the time, critics of the bill called it a “blanket ban” that infringes on “parental rights.”

Bad news: 9th Circuit Court blocks AB1955, a law protecting LGBTQ+ students from being forcibly outed by teachers.

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