SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, released the following statement from Executive Director Tony Hoang in response to legal alerts issued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta impacting LGBTQ+ youth in California regarding forced outing policies and state standards for inclusive curriculum:

“We can’t say it enough: forced outing policies are unnecessary and cruel, and open students up to harm and discrimination.

LGBTQ+ youth, particularly transgender students, have been under attack across California over the past year by local school boards and extremist lawmakers seeking to forcibly out them without their consent — causing high levels of anxiety and uncertainty in the lives of many LGBTQ+ youth and their families. The decision of the Murrieta Valley Unified School District to abandon implementation of their previously announced forced outing policy is an unequivocal win for students in this district. It also sends a warning to districts across the state that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a losing battle in California.

We are thankful to the students, parents, faculty and community members who spoke out against this policy. We are also incredibly grateful to the California Department of Education (CDE), Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta for challenging these types of policies.

Fortunately, voters in districts that seek to implement such policies are becoming wise to these efforts. Just last month, extremist school board members in Orange Unified and Woodland Unified were successfully recalled after they attacked LGBTQ+ students, and we are confident an upcoming recall in Temecula Unified will yield similar results.

Equality California will continue to speak out against such efforts to harm LGBTQ+ students in districts across our Golden State, and fight unceasingly for their rights to privacy and safe and supportive learning environments.”