After hearing testimony from two mothers about gender ideology run amok in California schools, the chair of the state Assembly Public Safety Committee was convinced that new safeguards are needed—not to protect students from gender "nonbinary" sleeping arrangements or graphic sexual material in public schools, as described by the moms, but to protect teachers from angry parents like them.
"We need to do something," said Democratic state assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D.), calling the moms "a real-life example of what you’re dealing with" as teachers. In a unanimous 6-0 vote, his committee went on to advance the bill that the moms testified against, Senate Bill 596, which would criminalize Californians who "harass" or make a "credible threat" against school employees off-campus.
S.B. 596 is one of several bills that California legislators are considering to restrict parents' rights in the name of empowering LGBT minors. Other Democratic-backed legislation in the works would let children as young as 12 years old enter state custody without parental consent and require judges to disfavor parents in custody disputes who do not affirm their child's gender identity. Last year, California passed a law—which has been emulated in other blue states—allowing minors from across the country to receive sex-change treatments even against their parents' wishes.
The mothers who testified against S.B. 596 on Tuesday, Allie Snyder and Nicole Young, spoke on behalf of dozens of parents who turned up at the hearing to register their opposition. Snyder told the panel that one California school allowed a boy and girl to share a hotel room alone on an overnight field trip against parents’ wishes because both kids identified as "nonbinary."
She also read aloud from This Book Is Gay, a sexually explicit guide to LGBT sex and gender on offer at her son’s middle school that shocked a different panel of California Democrats last week. "Perhaps the most important skill you will master as a gay or bi man is the timeless classic ‘the handjob,’" Snyder recited amid objections from members of the committee.
"Would you remain calm if your kids’ school didn't stop such obvious endangerment rather than criminalize parents who are terrorized by the grooming of their children?" Snyder asked.
Young, the chair of a Sacramento-area Moms for Liberty group, said an LGBT group called the Landing Spot used campus classrooms during school hours to advertise drag shows where minors age 12 and up could dance for cash tips. She said parents only learned about the event through a public records request.
"The number of kids with gender confusion is growing exponentially because of the schools asking for pronouns, sometimes daily, telling kids that they could be born in the wrong body, instructing them to keep secrets from their parents," Young said.
The Washington Free Beacon was not immediately able to confirm Synder or Young's accounts.
State senator Anthony Portantino, the author of S.B. 596, said the bill is a response to the behavior of Californians who—like many Americans—are upset about how schools teach gender and race.
A teachers' union representative who testified in favor of the legislation lamented that parents are attacking teachers over "phantom issues" like "grooming children or providing diversity through critical race theory."
It was those comments that prompted Jones-Sawyer to condemn Snyder and Young and speak of the need to "do something." However, he added that he wanted a solution that was "right down the middle" politically.