Judge Benitez Still Hates Trans Kids
After yet another Supreme Court intervention to curtail the rights of trans youth, a California judge insists trans kids who are likely to be abused should be outed to their parents.
Opinion by Aly Gibbs
Quick update on the forced outing of transgender schoolchildren in California!
Back in December, I reported on Judge Roger Benitez’s ruling in Mirabelli v. Olson that, per the Fourteenth Amendment, parents have a right to know about any reportable changes in their children’s gender identities, and that California schools could not withhold that information from parents. He said, “[Rules like these] harm the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure or a fleeting impulse. They harm the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs. And finally, they harm teachers who are compelled to violate the sincerely held beliefs and the parent’s rights by forcing them to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students.”
This ruling is, of course, complete nonsense. Nowhere in any religious scripture are trans people mentioned, nor is there any broad theological justification for the prohibition of social and medical transition. These are not the sincerely held religious beliefs of pious people; they are an “ick factor,” a reflexive disgust at the sight of somebody or something different, justified post-facto by religious handwringing.
We must wonder, too, where the separation of church and state has gone in all this.
In early January, a federal appellate panel put a temporary pause on Benitez’s asinine ruling. The panel felt that Benitez’s ruling might be too broad, and that his interpretation of the facts might be flawed. They said, “A preliminary review of the record shows that the State does not categorically forbid disclosure of information about students’ gender identities to parents without student consent. For example, guidance from the California Attorney General expressly states that schools can ‘allow disclosure where a student does not consent where there is a compelling need to do so to protect the student’s wellbeing.”
Then, on March 2, the Supreme Court overruled that pause.
“Everyone agrees that children’s safety is the overriding equity,” wrote the conservative majority in an unsigned opinion. “And the injunction here promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a role in some of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.”
It seems almost egregiously cruel to talk about “children’s safety” when the driving factor behind California school policies allowing educators to respect a trans child’s right to privacy is a fear that the child’s parents may behave abusively should they be outed as queer. That isn’t conjecture; the state explicitly said so in a March 19 request to modify Benitez’s ruling to allow educators to withhold changes in gender identity from parents who they suspect would visit abuse upon their queer child.
Monday, Benitez predictably said no. Educators, he argues, should simply subject trans children to abuse, and then report that abuse through the proper channels.
“I don’t know how you decide a child is going to be abused,” Benitez said as obtusely as possible. “This is not like ‘Minority Report,’ where you can look into the future. I don’t know how that happens … I don’t see why the state is taking such an intransigent position that should be so obvious with the Supreme Court decisions. After reviewing all of your papers, I see no reason to change anything. If you disagree, you can take it to the Ninth Circuit.”
The naked malice in Benitez’s ruling is unsettling. It’s clear that he has no respect for California educators or the right to privacy that all children should have. In no way is this a complicated issue, if you actually care about trans children. We know that trans youth experience all forms of abuse at significantly higher rates than their cisgender peers. We know that trans youth often experience homelessness and housing instability at greater rates than their cis and heterosexual peers, often as a result of parental abandonment after they come out or are forcibly outed to their parents.
Why, then, does Judge Roger Benitez so desperately want to see trans kids abused and made homeless? In what way have they wronged him? The motivations are unclear, but his hatred for these children is plain to see, and it sickens me. Controversial though it may be, my personal belief is that children of all ages are human beings worthy of respect and autonomy. Educators should have an explicit right to protect children from abusive parents, whether or not Roger Benitez believes that’s possible.
I hope the state does take this case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and I hope they absolutely demolish Benitez’s weak, animus-filled ruling there.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
