Two sets of Catholic parents, in league with a pair of public school teachers, are turning back the transgender movement’s timetable.
Six Concerned Americans Challenge the State of California
These six committed individuals brought their case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their argument was elegant in its simplicity—parents play the most important role in protecting their children’s wellbeing, including their mental health. A state cannot use the schools to impose its will on either parent or child.
On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court, by a six-to-three majority, agreed.
As yet, the Supreme Court’s decision is temporary because the case is still making its way through the legal process. Even so, the decision is crucial because it prevents the State of California from implementing a policy that would have schools conceal important information about children from their parents.
The official title of the case is Elizabeth Mirabelli et al. v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of the State of California, et al. The case could soon have serious consequences.
A Radical Pro-Transsexual Regime
The leftist California State Government actively promotes the presumed “rights” of those who believe they can change their sex.
However, protecting such whims requires a network of accomplices. Everyone who comes in contact with the confused person must adopt the fiction. To give voice to the truth is to deny the transgender person’s rights to their illusion.
California’s policy forced the entire public school system: administrators, teachers and other staff, to become perpetuators of the sex change falsehood. All had to acknowledge in words and actions that certain boys were girls and certain girls were boys. The child’s newly chosen name was to be used in all circumstances. The name their parents gave them—the “deadname”—was never to be mentioned. Similarly, all were instructed to use the child’s “preferred pronouns.”
A Legal Roller Coaster
Two teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori West, refused to play the state’s game. Under the time-honored theory that “the best defense is a good offense,” the pair brought suit against the state along with two pairs of parents, identified in court documents as “John and Jane Poe” and “John and Jane Doe,” to protect the identities of the couples’ children. The Thomas More Society represented them.
U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez first heard the case. After hearing the evidence, the judge entered a summary judgment in favor of the parents and teachers. According to the Legal Clarity website, summary judgment allows “a judge to decide a case when the facts are so clear that a jury or judge does not need to hear witnesses or weigh evidence to determine the truth.” The judge leaned heavily on the 2025 case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which the Supreme Court found that parents have a right to protect their children from “LGBTQ-themed” schoolbooks and other materials.
Despite the obvious connection to the earlier decision, the State of California challenged Judge Benitez’s ruling. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case. It directed the state to continue applying the disputed policies until it arrived at a decision, sometime in the uncertain (but probably distant) future.
Temporary Relief
The Supreme Court reinstated the District Court’s injunction on March 2. The case is still before the Appeals Court. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court blocked California from allowing its schools to facilitate the child’s “transition” without notifying parents, at least until the case is finally resolved.
The Supreme Court’s written opinion is somewhat wordy, but well worth taking the time to understand.
“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.
“Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.’ The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health…. California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.
“The denial of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights during the potentially protracted appellate process constitutes irreparable harm.”
Weak Contrary Arguments
The three liberal justices disagreed, arguing that California should continue to follow its harmful policy until the Ninth Circuit issued its decision. Justice Kagan wrote a dissent for herself and the other liberal justices. In it, she did not so much criticize the majority decision, but, rather, the speed with which her fellow justices worked. “The court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly…. If nothing else, this court owes it to a sovereign state to avoid throwing over its policies in a slapdash way.”
However, another of Justice Kagan’s points may win the prize for utter fecklessness. Arguing that speed was unnecessary, she informed the rest of the Court that, “By recent count, almost 40 cases raising due process and/or free exercise objections to similar school policies are currently in the judicial system, so this Court would not have to wait long.”
Justice Kagan, how many children could be mutilated in the “not long” time before the Court would make a decision that meets your timetable?
Reactions—The Happy and The Sad
The reactions followed the expected pattern. In the manner of the well-oiled politician, California governor Gavin Newsom tried to sidestep the whole issue, being quoted by the Associated Press as saying that teachers should spend their time teaching, rather than being required “to be gender cops.” Later, Marissa Saldivar, one of the governor’s spokespersons, devised a more official-sounding response, saying that the order “undermines student privacy and the ability to learn in a safe and supportive classroom, free from discrimination based on gender identity.”
On the other hand, the California Family Council praised the decision. “The justices made clear that such secretive policies are not just administrative decisions; they are constitutional harms to parental liberty that cannot be brushed aside by lower courts.” (Emphasis in the original.)
If anything, the Thomas More Society’s reaction was even more celebratory. “The landmark 6-3 decision is the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation. The Court found that California’s secret transition regime likely violates parents’ rights under both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, holding that the state ‘cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.’”
The Determination of a Few
While kudos should go out to the organizations that assisted the plaintiffs, this case’s most inspiring aspect lies elsewhere. While the support was crucial, the real credit goes to six people—four parents and two teachers. They saw their ability to raise and educate children according to Christian tenets trampled by a state government that knew a lot about ideology, but virtually nothing about the needs of the children trapped in the lies that their ideology perpetuates.
Parents and teachers should take notice and draw encouragement from this magnificent success, and pray for more like it.
Photo Credit: © kirkikis – stock.adobe.com