California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday to prevent the Chino Valley Unified School District from notifying parents about transgender students, in the most recent attempt by Democrat state officials to fight the adoption of such policies by conservative school boards.
According to Politico, the outcome of the case could affect other districts in the liberal state that have enacted similar policies in the last couple of months, including Murrieta Valley, Temecula and Anderson Union High School.
"The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home," Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Our message to Chino Valley Unified and all school districts in California is loud and clear: We will never stop fighting for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students."
Passed last month, the Chino Valley policy requires school officials to notify parents if a student asks to use a different name or pronoun than what's listed in their official record, or if a student requests to participate in programs or use sex-segregated spaces that don't align with their assigned gender.
Supporters have called the policy a "parental rights issue," but Bonta maintains the board is discriminating against transgender and gender-nonbinary students.
"In discussing the policy before its passage, board members made a number of statements describing students who are transgender or gender non-conforming as suffering from a 'mental illness' or 'perversion,' or as being a threat to the integrity of the nation and the family," Bonta said in a statement.
In a state where Democrats control higher offices, conservatives have targeted Chino Valley and other California school districts, recruiting and helping to elect local candidates like Sonja Shaw.
Shaw is the president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education and the primary backer of the board's new policy on transgender students. Before she was elected in November, Shaw said she was "never involved in any politics" and "didn't even know what the GOP was." The pandemic revealed that Sacramento politicians were "pushing perversion on our children in every possible way," she said.
In his lawsuit, Bonta argues the policy violates several state legal protections, including the California equal protection clause, the state education and government code and California's constitutional right to privacy.
Andi Johnston, a spokesperson for Chino Valley Unified School District, told Reuters it is "working with its legal counsel to review the lawsuit and its contents."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.