U.S. court revives mother's case against school's gender identity policy

Reuters

04-04-2025

April 4 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit by a California mother accusing public school employees of violating her rights as a parent by using a male name and pronouns for her daughter in 2022, in accordance with the gender identity she expressed at the time.
The unanimous panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that, opens new tab a lower court judge used an incorrect legal standard in dismissing the case but did not weigh in on its merits, instead sending it back to the lower court to reconsider.
Lawyers for the plaintiff, Aurora Regino, and for Chico Unified School District Superintendent Kelly Staley and other school employees did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Regino is represented by the Center for American Liberty, a conservative group that has taken other cases involving transgender issues, including a lawsuit by a former patient against a doctor who prescribed her puberty blocking drugs and hormones.
Her lawsuit is one of several that have been filed over school policies on whether to tell parents about students' gender identities. The U.S. Supreme Court turned away one such case last December.
According to Regino's January 2023 lawsuit, school employees began using a male name and pronouns for her older daughter, then in fifth grade, in early 2022 after she told a counselor that she "felt like a boy." Regino said the school was acting in accordance with a policy barring it from disclosing a student's transgender or gender-nonconforming status without the student's written consent, and that the policy violated her fundamental rights as a parent.
In April 2022, Regino learned about her daughter's gender identity. She contacted the school and said she would not have allowed the school to "socially transition" her without first consulting a mental health professional if she had been informed, and through conversations with Staley and other employees learned about the school's policy.
Later in 2022, Regino's daughter stopped identifying as male. In her lawsuit, however, Regino said in her lawsuit that there was a risk that her younger daughter could also begin identifying as male. She asked the court to rule that the policy is illegal and that the school cannot use a different name or pronouns for her child without telling her.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Mendez in Sacramento dismissed the case, finding that there was no clear precedent establishing the broad right to make medical and other important decisions for her children that Regino claimed.
The 9th Circuit panel said that Mendez should have analyzed whether the school violated Regino's right to due process under the U.S. Constitution even if there was no clear precedent establishing the broad right she claimed.
"Thus far, both parties have advanced unqualified positions that are unsupported by precedent: Regino has suggested that parental rights are nearly unlimited, and the District has insisted that a child's right to make decisions is nearly unrestricted," Circuit Judge Morgan Christen, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote for the panel.
"Neither is the case. On remand, the district court will be able to conduct a nuanced assessment of existing precedent concerning fundamental rights for parents."
Christen was joined by Circuit Judges Kim Wardlaw, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, and Mark Bennett, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump.
The case is Regino v. Staley et al, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, No. 23-16031.
For Regino: Josh Dixon of the Center for American Liberty