A newly formed group is petitioning to put an anti-transgender measure on the 2024 California ballot. The so-called Protect Kids of California Act of 2024 would ban gender-affirming care for minors, require school faculty to out students to parents, and repeal preexisting protections for trans students.
Protect Kids California initially announced its plans to petition for an anti-trans ballot initiative in August, according to CapRadio, and began collecting signatures for the initiative last week.
The group was founded by Jonathan Zachreson, a member of the Sacramento-area Roseville City School District Board of Trustees. According to his X bio, he also founded Reopen California Schools, an organization dedicated to reopening schools at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During an August press conference on Protect Kids California's plans to restrict the rights of trans youth, Zachreson claimed that California has a system “that sells false choices and false hope to parents and their kids,” in comments reported by CapRadio. “This bill of lies has been sold to many young people, especially young women, in California,” he added.
Presumably, these comments refer to the fact that California has some of the country’s most robust protections for trans people, including trans youth. The state was the first “sanctuary state” for trans youth, providing legal protections for minors and their caregivers who come to California to pursue gender-affirming care. In September, Governor Gavin Newsom signed nine LGBTQ+ rights bills into law, which established the legal right to privacy for minors who legally change their gender or sex identifiers, required public schools to have at least one all-gender restroom, and mandated LGBTQ+ competency training for teachers.
Still, California is not a universal haven for trans youth. In recent months, conservative activists have introduced policies at the district level that would force faculty to out students to their parents. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued one of those school districts, Chino Valley Unified School District, in August, claiming that the policy violates the California Constitution and state civil rights law. Two provisions of the law were blocked by a California judge, who ruled in October that the policy is unconstitutional.
In official state documentation that allows the group to start collecting signatures, Bonta summarized the Protect California Kids initiative as “restricts rights of transgender youth.” In a press release, Zachreson called the summary “laughable, although predictable,” and claimed that Bonta was “showing his bias.”
In the same press release, Scott Davison, attorney for Protect Kids California, said that the group would be legally challenging Bonta’s title and summary, claiming that it is “false and misleading” and a “clear violation of California election code.”
On Monday, The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that it was “tempting to laugh off a measure so blatantly discriminatory that it attempts to define transgenderism out of existence,” but cautioned that “it has just enough connection to public debate to give it a veneer of legitimacy.”
This warning is an important one: After all, in 2008, California voters successfully passed the Proposition 8 ballot initiative, banning same-sex marriage statewide, although it was later overturned in court. As absurd as it may seem, the Protect Kids of California Act could be a grim case of California history repeating itself if it's not taken seriously.
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