Content warning: discussions of forced outing.
Chino Hills, California is known for its outdoor shopping malls, its competitive secondary schools, and the fact that NBA basketball players the Ball brothers once lived on its green and always-clean streets. In more recent years, my hometown has also become known for the discriminatory legislation and public prejudice of its ultraconservative school board council.
Growing up, the conservatism of Chino Hills seemed like the norm. In 2015, I remember the heated conversations in middle school when gay marriage was legalized. Most of my peers did not want the news “shoved in our faces.” Religion was a huge factor in our day-to-day lives, with many Christian and Mormon churches in a half-mile vicinity. I recall endless Instagram posts of peers’ religious retreats, quotes from the Bible, and Mormon missions to Australia, South America, or Timbuktu. These same people fell silent when our school board approved a July 2023 policy that notified parents when their children identified with different pronouns or genders in school.
The unjust New Board Policy 5020.1, also known as the Parental Notification Policy, hides its prejudice in the guise of mending trust between parents and school staff. It requires all school staff and faculty to report to parents within three days of discovering that their child requests to be “identified or treated, as a gender […] other than the student’s biological sex or gender listed on the student’s birth certificate.” Students are consequently outed to their parents regardless of their consent, putting them in a potentially dangerous situation if their parents are highly conservative. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there; faculty and staff must also report if a student participates in an athletic team or uses a bathroom that does not align with their assigned gender at birth.
A majority of Americans assume that California is an ultra-progressive, left-leaning state. However, many regions within the state aren’t as inclusive as one might think, including the Inland Empire. When I was enrolled in the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), what I knew about the LGBTQ+ community was limited to its stereotypes. Bisexuality was reduced to indecisiveness, pronouns were not changeable, and “gay” was an insult synonymous with “weird” or “embarrassing.” Queer people could come out, but if you were too accepting, they might hit on you. And if you hung around them too much, it could rub off on you, too.
Conservatism isn’t the default, as exemplified by the joint efforts of students and faculty to foster a queer-inclusive environment. By my senior year of high school, clubs for LGBTQ+ students and allies had been established at nearly every school in the district. Public opinion began to be more accepting, and prejudiced comments against the queer community diminished. My former AP Biology teacher, Steven Frazer, captured this growing allyship in his LA Times comment regarding the July board meeting: “It used to be where [teachers] were supposed to create a safe learning environment, and now that’s taking this spin of grooming. And we have to remove Pride flags, because we’re convincing the students to be gay.” You tell ‘em, Mr. Frazer.
Nonetheless, we are still far from the level of acceptance of liberal spaces. A month ago, the Chino Valley Board of Education ratified the original policy, omitting language that deliberately referred to gender-nonconforming students in order to appear non-discriminatory. Its demands remain the same, as faculty and staff must still report to parents if a child is “requesting to change any information contained in the student’s official or unofficial records” such as their gender or legal name. Co-founder Kristi Hirst of the public education advocacy group Our Schools USA told ABC7 that the decision was “just broadening the scope so that they don’t obviously single that population out” and that “the intent behind it, in [her] opinion, is no different.”
Popular narratives say that Sonja Shaw, the Board President of CVUSD and “leader of the parental rights movement,” simply cares about young people. In reality, she only cares for the cishet, gender-conforming youth. She claims her motives are not to impose religious beliefs but “to restore the natural order, helping parents wrest back from schools and government the authority to guide their children.”
What about the parents who want their children to feel accepted and safe at their schools no matter the circumstance? Hirst is both a co-founder of Our Schools USA, an organization dedicated to putting students and their interests first in regards to policy making, and also a mother to three children enrolled in CVUSD. She determined that this policy, unlike Shaw’s claim, is “rooted in distrust” and “promotes that parents shouldn’t trust the school and teachers and that is not good for education,” adding that students “will constantly have to be on guard even if they aren’t the one being targeted by this policy.” By forcing educators to share private student information with their parents, it portrays gender-nonconforming pronouns as disobedient and refractory, thus punishing LGBTQ+ youth and their right to privacy.
Shaw’s commitment to ostracizing the queer community might not work out in the long run. Current high school students attended the July board meeting to oppose the board’s decision and uphold a queer-inclusive district. One anonymous Chino Valley student told the board in an April 2023 meeting, “You are supposed to protect students. You are supposed to support students. You are supposed to ensure equality for each student. However, proposing this resolution does the complete opposite.”
Shaw thinks she’s saving CVUSD from disarray. In actuality, her schemes shed light on an ever-growing problem harming K-12 youth. Parents came to board meetings in support of their children, and teachers rallied behind their students. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond attended the July meeting, likewise opposing the policy.
These events may seem bleak, but I’m optimistic knowing that this new generation of queer voices and advocates is willing to fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ youth.
Credits:
Author: Emerie Avila (She/Her)
Copy Editors: Ariana Castro (She/Her), Emma Blakely (They/She/He)