“That is our duty as parents, to affirm our children,” State Representative Lori Wilson, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a speech on the Assembly floor.
State Senator Scott Wiener, a fellow San Francisco Democrat, co-sponsored the bill. He was behind the 2022 ‘trans refuge bill’ which gave immunity from other states’ laws to minors seeking ‘gender affirming care’ in California.
Republicans have criticised the proposal, arguing that family court judges already have the discretion to make that determination. With only 18 seats in the 80-member chamber, however, there was little they could do to stop it.
Last month, a school district in the Bay Area paid $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a parent whose child was “secretly transitioned” without her knowledge or consent. Jessica Konen alleged that the Spreckels Union School District and three of its employees “secretly convinced” her daughter of being bisexual and transgender, referred to her as a boy, instructed her on binding her breasts, and allowed her to use the faculty bathroom.
Teachers allegedly encouraged Konen’s daughter to use a boy’s name, wear clothing for boys, read articles about gender transition, and “not to tell her mother about her new gender identity or new name, saying that her mother might not be supportive of her and that she couldn’t trust her mother.”
