Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a related issue, a panel of judges at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted an injunction preventing the enforcement of California’s AB 1955, a law that bars school officials from telling parents about “gender transitions” being imposed on their children.
The stunning reversal comes after the same court had rejected requests for an injunction twice earlier.
But the panel now has confirmed that a state policy barring school employees from informing parents of their children’s gender transition is unlawful.
The fight is in court over the city of Huntington Beach and a group of parents who are demanding that such secrecy policies violate their rights.
The ruling, a massive blow to California’s pro-transgender ideology, cited the Supreme Court’s emergency docket ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta to conclude the state policy “likely deprives” parents of their constitutional rights.
The Mirabelli case, from March, found the high court deciding 6-3 in favor of blocking a similar scheme. That case, in turn, was based on a 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor that affirmed parental rights to opt their children out of LGBT promotions and ideologies mandated by schools.
“Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children,’” Mirabelli said. “The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”
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The Supreme Court just stepped in for parents. In an … pic.twitter.com/Yd1gRBENHR
— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman) June 19, 2026
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The Ninth Circuit has blocked California officials from enforcing parts of a state law that limit schools from disclosing a student’s gender identity information to parents. pic.twitter.com/OBRYZqDX2l
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) June 19, 2026
Judges on the panel were Daniel Collins, Kenneth Lee and Lucy Koh.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon reacted with, “Children don’t belong to the State — they belong to parents.”
The ruling said “an objecting parent who is the target of AB 1955’s effort to prohibit constitutionally required mandatory policies has standing to seek injunctive relief to remove that unlawful impediment to compliance with the Constitution.”
And, it said, “Mirabelli found sufficient standing without requiring the objecting parents who constituted the relevant subclass to make any specific showing as to the likelihood that their particular child would actually experience gender dysphoria and have that information withheld.”
“Parents will likely succeed on the merits of their substantive due process challenge to AB 1955 to the extent that AB 1955’s regulation of ‘information related to a pupil’s . . . gender identity[] or gender expression,’” the ruling said.
A report at the Washington Examiner explained, “The Supreme Court is likely to take up a case involving school secret gender transition policies in one of the coming terms, as the issue works its way through federal courts. The high court had two chances to add a case about secret gender transition policies to its argument calendar earlier this year, but punted on both cases.”
