California enacts transgender student legislation

August 16, 2013

Students in California public schools who identify themselves as transgendered will be permitted to participate in opposite-sex sport teams and use opposite-sex facilities under a bill signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The California Catholic Conference had opposed the measure.

According to the new law, “a pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

An attorney for the Pacific Justice Institute, which opposed the measure, told the Los Angeles Times that “the vast majority of California students who do not identify as transgender have a reasonable privacy expectation that they will not be forced to undress or share bathroom, locker room, shower and sleeping facilities with members of the opposite biological sex.”

“Think of all of the parents and all of the students that would be uncomfortable in this situation, and that a student has no burden but to declare that ‘I want to be in the boys’ shower or the girls’ shower’ that day,” added State Sen. Jim Nielsen, an opponent of the legislation.

 

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Further information:

• California transgender students given access to opposite-sex programs (Los Angeles Times)
• California's transgender students bill of rights: Going too far? (Los Angeles Times)
• Tinkering With Children's Lives, Again (California Catholic Conference)