Parents Beware: The Truth Behind California's Mandatory LGBTQ+ Lessons
As California school districts discuss how to implement opt outs due to the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming parents’ right to withdraw children from discussions on LGBTQ+ issues that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” it’s important to understand how California parents have historically been misrepresented, which has resulted in the creation of unconstitutional state laws. I witnessed this firsthand as a school board member in Orange County.
In 2018, while serving on the Orange Unified School Board, I reviewed the new Teen Talk, considered the most state-compliant curriculum under the California Healthy Youth Act (AB 329). Having worked in public education since 1990—and even co-writing an AIDS prevention curriculum for incarcerated youth—I was alarmed by what I found. It contained teachings about gender being based on one’s feelings. The Teen Talk Video told kids, “You can be gender fluid, gender queer, gender non-conforming, or no gender. School is a place to… change and experiment.” It used the Genderbread person to teach kids that gender is ever-expanding and ever-evolving. It normalized polyamory and introduced expansive plus sexualities like pansexuality—terms that were unfamiliar to most parents.
When I brought this forward, parents were shocked. At a May 30, 2018 meeting, after strong public testimony, our board voted 4–3 to halt the program. A week later, the ACLU sent a letter reprimanding us, claiming we fostered “an atmosphere of LGBTQ bias” and citing a statistic that “89% of California parents support Comprehensive Sex Education.” Curious, I contacted the UC Berkeley professor behind the study, Dr. Norman Constantine. He confirmed the 2007 survey only measured support for contraception and HIV / STD prevention versus abstinence-only education. The survey did not ask about gender identity, pansexuality, or non-monogamous relationships—the very content embedded in the state-recommended curriculum, Teen Talk.
This meant the ACLU, Equality California, and Planned Parenthood, who lobbied for AB 329, used data that grossly misrepresented California parents. Decision-makers were told nearly all parents supported “comprehensive sex ed,” when, in reality, the survey never addressed the expansive LGBTQ+ subjects now mandated in classrooms.
The ACLU also opposed the Orange County Board of Education’s 2018 Resolution affirming parental rights, which stated that parents should introduce gender identity and sexual orientation to their children in ways consistent with their values. The ACLU dismissed this, arguing parents have “no constitutional right to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise.” This offensive response created a backlash.
In 2020, parents across California supported SB 673, requiring K–6 sex ed to taught on an opt-in basis and posted online. The bill united Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, and a branch of the NAACP, who wanted parents—not the state—to guide when young children are introduced to sexual topics.
The ACLU opposed SB 673, citing a 1989 study on junior high drug prevention—completely unrelated to elementary sex education. The ACLU’s misuse of an outdated, irrelevant study shows they had no credible evidence for opposing this Opt-In bill.
AB 329 is not just about sex education. Ed Code 51932(b) under anti-harassment, bullying, and safe schools, says parents may not opt out or excuse their child, for any grade level, from instruction that discusses gender identity or expression, and parents do not need to be notified ahead of time when instruction is given. This includes primary books that introduce over eleven gender identities, puberty blocker cartoons, or drag queen story videos. Due to the many deceptive misrepresentations of parents by the ACLU for the past 10 years, it’s no surprise that when parents started discovering what their children were learning in school, there were heated objections and uprisings.
While the Supreme Court’s ruling now allows parents to opt out of LGBTQ+ instruction because it is their Constitutional First Amendment Right, the problem is that our contradictory state laws, such as EC 51932(b), have not been amended. Rebuilding public trust will require changing state laws that were based on faulty precepts, respecting the parents’ role via opt-ins, and providing legal avenues to school choice options.
