On Monday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a policy currently embedded in more than a thousand school districts nationwide: hiding children’s so-called “gender transitions” from their parents. The 6-3 ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta restored a class-wide permanent injunction against California’s statewide concealment regime. But the decision reaches far beyond California. Every school in America that maintains a policy of keeping secrets from families about their children’s mental health is now on constitutional notice.
The case began with two schoolteachers who refused to lie. Heading into the 2022-2023 school year, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West received a list of seven students who had requested new names or pronouns — the parents of six of those students had no clue about the change. Teachers were expected to use the new identities and say nothing. If a parent asked, they were to deflect or deceive. Both Mirabelli and West, former teachers of the year in their school district, refused. They faced termination for their honesty.
