A “bathroom bill” for California schools sparks a backlash.

Girls, Boys, Both, Neither

by Larry Sand

California finds itself once again on the cutting edge of a controversial social experiment. This time, the fight is about how the state will instruct school children about sex and gender identity. In August, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1266—the vague, yet sweeping, transgender “bathroom bill”—into law. The controversial legislation may be summed up in its final 37 words: “A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

San Francisco Democrat Tom Ammiano authored AB 1266 with the support of the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. He touted the bill as essential to protecting the rights of students with “gender-identity issues”—young people who, for a variety of reasons, don’t identify with the biological sex into which they were born. In reality, California already protects those students against discrimination, and schools were redoubling their efforts to combat bullying well before Ammiano and his colleagues drafted AB 1266. So what’s the point of the new law? As political strategist Frank Schubert points out, the legislation is intended to “advance an adult political agenda by special interests [that] wish to use our public schools as a tool to strip gender and gender differences from societal norms. In the process, the privacy and security interests of all students, including those who are transgendered, are compromised.”

Schubert is working with a coalition of parents, students, and faith-based groups called “Privacy for All Students” to block the law from taking effect on January 1. The group recently submitted more than 600,000 signatures to place an initiative on the November 2014 ballot that would repeal AB 1266. If the petition drive succeeds, the law would be suspended until voters weigh in next year. (The way the process works, at least 505,000 of those signatures must be deemed valid for the measure to qualify.)

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