The Supreme Court's move against trans kids in California empowers MAGA to mess with all families

[marmar]

Republicans don’t care about parents’ rights
The Supreme Court’s move against trans kids in California empowers MAGA to mess with all families

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published March 11, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) When Republicans talk about parents’ rights, look for the child that is being harmed. This rule of thumb rarely fails. “Parents’ rights” is one of those phrases that sounds good on paper, encouraging people to imagine themselves — loving and protective parents who only want the power to do right by their child. But when conservatives invoke the term, their objective is to trump a child’s rights to be safe and healthy, despite what a toxic or even abusive parent wants to do to them.

That reality was revealed yet again last week, when the Supreme Court blocked a California law preventing teachers from outing trans kids to religious parents. The injunction is temporary, but most legal experts believe it is inevitable that the Christian right-favoring court will eventually rule against a child’s ability to decide when and with whom to share their gender identity — even if they fear being beaten, disowned or thrown out on the streets.

The case, known as Mirabelli v. Bonta, centers around a family who is refusing to accept their high school child’s self-identification as a boy, which, by their own account, began when he was in fifth grade. The teenager has attempted suicide, but still the plaintiffs argue that their right “to raise their child in accordance” with their “sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender” should prevail over a law protecting the child’s right to call himself by the name and pronouns of his choice at school.

....(snip)....

Conservatives are trying to reframe being trans as “a form of mental illness that is not acceptable,” Jones explained. The explicit goal of the plaintiffs in this suit is to give conservative parents the ability to compel a minor to use a name, pronouns and mode of dress the child doesn’t accept — to essentially force them back into the closet. But research is quite clear, she noted: When trans people are not allowed to openly live their gender identity, “there’s a big impact on mental health,” including increased rates of suicidality and dropping out of school. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/11/republicans-dont-care-about-parents-rights/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Despotism begins when they make it illegal to think what you believe

It's the basis of self, religion, rights. The right to think and be left alone. Yet the righteous always fall into the trap.

[Bettie]

2. Now, there's a family that will express shock

when their child goes no contact with them.

They always are shocked, they don't understand why the kid wants nothing to do with them.

Every time.