A few days ago, Elon Musk announced he is moving the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media giant X to Texas from California. What tipped him over? A new California law quietly enacted while we were all replaying videos of bullets flying and Trump surviving.

The law says that school districts cannot be required to notify parents when their children start using different pronouns at school or seek to change their gender identity. It’s a blatant attempt to squash what has been happening in many local school boards throughout the state, as parents have been rising up in anger over this issue.

With the California legislature and governor so willing to tilt the balance of authority away from parents, Musk decided he’d had enough.

The Background

At least seven California school districts have passed parental notification policies regarding this issue in just the last year or so. They work like this: If a child asks to use a bathroom or changing room that doesn’t match his or her biological sex; if they say they are transgender; or if they ask to use a name or pronoun inconsistent with the one on their birth certificate, school officials must notify parents within three days.

Local school boards have a high level of accountability to their citizens. Shifting an entire state legislature is a Herculean task (especially in California, where Democrats have a supermajority), but a school board can be easily turned over, as it comes down to the voters in that region. School boards have a strong interest in being responsive to parents’ concerns because their tax dollars fund the schools and theirs are the votes that keep them in office.

Motivated parents have a lot of political pull: In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin came from behind to win the governor’s race because parents there wanted more say in their children’s education.

Nationwide, most voters think schools should inform parents when children want to change their gender identity. In fact, 49% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 83% of Republicans support mandatory notification.

Legal Challenges

One California school district that implemented a parental notification policy last year was Chino Valley Unified (CVUSD). Only a few weeks later, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into that action. He said Chino’s policy would render LGBTQ students more vulnerable to harassment and abuse from family members. Bonta later sued CVUSD on these grounds.

In October a judge blocked CVUSD’s policy while the case played out in the courts. The school district responded by updating its policy to scrub references to gender identity, only mandating that parents be notified if a student requests a change to his or her (official or unofficial) records.

In making this update, was CVUSD conceding defeat? Not really. CVUSD’s opponents took no solace in the new language. LGBTQ advocate Kristi Hirst said: “They’re just broadening the scope so that they don’t obviously single that population out. But the intent behind it, in my opinion, is no different.”

CVUSD’s attorney, Emily Rae, said, “The district still believes the (original) policy is legally defensible and constitutional.” She cited a recent court ruling in favor of Temecula Unified School District’s parental notification policy.

But that’s part of the problem: California courts have not been consistent in their rulings on these policies.

Next Phase

You can see why progressives might want to squelch all this back-and-forth. California’s new law overrides the school districts in saying that — no matter what the local boards prefer — districts cannot implement parental notification policies at all, period, end of story.

Except it’s not. Within 24 hours of Newsom signing the new law this week, CVUSD sued the state, challenging the new law. Other legal challenges are sure to follow.

It’s not hard to see why. The Supreme Court has historically understood the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting parental rights to the “care, custody, and control” of their children. How can a state codify its government’s power to keep secrets from parents? How can a state violate parents’ God-given and constitutional right to shape their children’s understanding on something as critical as their own gender? Why trust school employees more than parents? Why believe that an eight-year old’s sense of her gender outweighs a parents’ right to speak into that understanding? Why assume that parents would harass or abuse their gender-confused children? The state already has remedies for those very rare cases in which parents are a danger to their children.

At least six states require school districts to notify parents if their child opts for a different gender identity: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. California is the first to forbid school districts from requiring parental notification.

Let’s hope the courts will see how import parents are in the lives of their children.

Alex Chediak (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley) is a professor and the author of Thriving at College (Tyndale House, 2011), a roadmap for how students can best navigate the challenges of their college years. His latest book is Beating the College Debt Trap. Learn more about him at www.alexchediak.com or follow him on Twitter (@chediak).