A federal judge in California ruled that teachers could out trans students if they want to. His ruling involved a case filed by two Christian teachers who claimed that their district’s anti-outing policy violated their religious beliefs.

Judge Roger Benitez, appointed by former President George W. Bush, granted summary judgment earlier this week in favor of two teachers at Rincon Middle School in Escondido who sued over Escondido Union School District’s policies that require them to respect the names and pronouns of trans students and to privately keep information student disclosure of gender identity, unless they give consent or their physical or mental well-being is in danger.

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“The policy also forces [plaintiff] Elizabeth [Mirabelli] and others like her to violate faith,” said the teachers’ attorney, Paul Jonna, when filing the suit. “She has constitutional rights that are being violated by this policy, which is forcing teachers to lie and participate in deception.”

“This case is about the right to speak freely, the right to exercise my own religious beliefs,” Mirabelli told WRAL News in 2023, when the lawsuit was filed.

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Judge Benitez granted the teachers a temporary injunction in 2023, blocking enforcement of the policy against them while their case was being heard. And now he ruled in their favor.

“When it comes to a student’s change in gender identity, California state policymakers apparently do not trust parents to do the right thing for their child,” he wrote, despite the evidence that young people can face danger if outed to their parents prematurely. Trans and nonbinary youth are much more likely to experience homelessness compared to cisgender youth.

Benitez also said that the district’s policy violates parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights “to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children” and the rights to religious exercise held by both teachers and parents.

In his 2023 order for an injunction, Benitez said that he believed that parents need to know if their kid is trans because they might just be saying they’re trans because of “bullying, peer pressure, or a fleeting impulse.” In reality, trans students are likely to face bullying for identifying as trans, and society puts an enormous amount of pressure on LGBTQ+ young people to pretend that they are not LGBTQ+.

The California Attorney General’s Office is already planning an appeal, according to the Times of San Diego, and has filed for an injunction against Benitez’s order. The state said that if the teachers are now allowed to out students, they could cause irreparable harm. “The information cannot be un-disclosed.”

“We believe that the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement. “We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives.”

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