The chairman of a California Assembly committee has blocked a parental rights bill that would ban secret gender transitions at schools following several packed school board meetings that reflect an ongoing national debate over student privacy versus parental rights and growing public interest in the controversy.
Assembly Bill 1314, authored by Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona), would require a teacher, counselor, or school employee to notify a parent within three days of becoming aware that a student is identifying at school as a gender not aligning with the child’s sex on their birth certificate or sex assigned at birth.
Assembly Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) issued a statement on April 10 saying the committee will not hear the proposed legislation, “not only because the bill is proposing bad policy, but also because a hearing would potentially provide a forum for increasingly hateful rhetoric targeting LGBTQ youth.”…