The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked California schools from hiding students’ “gender transitions” from parents as litigation continues over the state’s “gender secrecy policy” in lower courts.
The conservative-leaning High Court ruled 6-3 in favor of concerned parents and reinstated a December district court ruling permanently halting the state’s school transgender policy — a ruling that was steamrolled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit the following month.
The majority wrote in their opinion that religious parents, as well as parents who object purely because they believe they have the right to direct the upbringing of their children, are likely to succeed on the merits of their case and face irreparable harm if the policy is not halted during the lengthy litigation process. The court also cited its June 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which justice sided with religious parents who sued their Maryland school board over its refusal to allow K-5 children to opt out of LGBTQ+ curriculum.
“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim. California’s policies likely trigger strict scrutiny under that provision because they substantially interfere with the right of parents to guide the religious development of their children,” the majority wrote. “The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California’s policies violate those beliefs and impose the kind of burden on religious exercise that Yoder found unacceptable. Indeed, the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here — unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition — is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud.”
“California’s policies will likely not survive the strict scrutiny that Mahmoud demands. The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents,” they continued.
“California’s policies also appear to fail the narrow-tailoring requirement. The State’s interest in safety could be served by a policy that allows religious exemptions while precluding gender-identity disclosure to parents who would engage in abuse. For these reasons, the parents who object to the California policies on free exercise grounds are likely to succeed on the merits,” they wrote.
“The same is true for the subclass of parents who object to those policies on due process grounds. Under long-established precedent, parents — not the State — have primary authority with respect to the upbringing and education of children,” they added. “The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”
Liberal-leaning Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latter of whom has repeatedly shown she is unable to define what a woman is, dissented, arguing the High Court is prematurely interfering in the case. Still, the justices admitted parents may have what it takes to ultimately win the case.
“None of this is to say that the Court gets the merits here wrong. It may not — as to the plaintiffs’ free exercise claim, or their substantive due process claim, or both. As to due process particularly — because, again, that claim alone does all the load-bearing work in this case. I have no doubt that parents have rights, even though unenumerated, concerning their children and the life choices they make,” Kagan wrote for the dissent. “On the other side of ledger, of course, a State has critical interests in the care and education of children. But California’s policy, in depriving all parents of information critical to their children’s health and well-being, could have crossed the constitutional line. And that would entitle the parents, at the end of the day, to relief.”
The class action lawsuit was originally brought by two Christian teachers in California in 2023 and was later joined in 2024 by several concerned parents whose families have been impacted by the policy. Among the plaintiffs are “John” and “Jane Poe,” devout Catholic parents who allege they were never informed that their junior-high daughter was being treated as male at school for almost a year.
“Only when Child Poe unsuccessfully attempted suicide six months later did doctors treating her inform her parents about her ongoing gender transition at school,” the emergency request filed on behalf of parents to the Supreme Court in January details.
Unable to afford private school, her parents transferred her to another school and requested the school keep them informed of her “gender presentation” and the use of her legal name and biological pronouns — but the school refused to do so, citing the state’s policy, attorneys said.
“The Poe parents thus remain completely sidelined by the school — to this day — pursuant to California’s policy that requires withholding information about their daughter’s gender presentation at school,” the emergency request states. “The same is true of Plaintiffs John and Jane Doe, also devout Catholics, who were lied to by each of their daughter’s teachers, and eventually discovered that the school had begun socially transitioning their daughter as early as fifth grade. They are still being denied notice about her current gender expression at school under Defendants’ policy.”
Thomas More Society attorneys representing the parents filed the emergency application after the Ninth Circuit stayed a lower court decision blocking California’s policy. On December 22, 2025, the federal district court issued a class-wide permanent injunction blocking the gender secrecy policies. On January 5, 2026, the federal appeals court stayed the injunction, allowing the policies to resume in public schools as litigation continues.
Paul M. Jonna, Special Counsel at Thomas More Society and Partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP, called the Supreme Court’s intervention a “watershed moment for parental rights in America.”
“The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: You cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back,” Jonna said in a statement. “The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.”
Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society, said bureaucrats in California can no longer “secretly facilitate a child’s gender transition while shutting out parents.”
“California built a wall of secrecy between parents and their own children, and the Supreme Court just tore it down. This groundbreaking ruling will protect parents’ rights to raise their children as they see fit for years to come,” Breen said.
The case will continue in lower courts and could eventually appear before the Supreme Court again.
The case is Mirabelli v. Bonta, No. 25A810 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
