COMMENTARY: In a 6-3 decision, the justices lift a stay blocking enforcement of a state policy that allowed schools to facilitate a child’s gender transition without parental knowledge or consent.
On Monday afternoon, the Supreme Court of the United States did something remarkable: It told the State of California, in no uncertain terms, that parents are not the enemy.
In a 6-3 decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the Court lifted a stay on a class-action injunction secured by the Thomas More Society on behalf of California parents, restoring protections against the state’s policy of secretly facilitating the social gender transition of children at school without parental knowledge or consent and, in many cases, through active deception.
Two of the named plaintiff families put a human face on what that secrecy regime actually meant in practice. Both are devout Catholics whose faith shapes their understanding of sex and the human person, and both were systematically cut out of their own children’s lives by the state.
One family had no idea their daughter had been presenting as a boy at school, under a different name, with different pronouns through all of seventh grade, including during parent-teacher meetings where staff said nothing.
