The California Mom at the Center of Trump's Crackdown on School Gender Policies

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In 2022, near the end of her youngest child's freshman year in high school, a Southern California mom spotted an unfamiliar male name on an online biology assignment: Toby. When she asked the teacher about it, he shrugged it off as a nickname.
While scrolling through Instagram, the mother noticed her child's friends also called the teen Toby. So she began digging for further evidence of something she had started to suspect — that the ninth grader, with the school's support, was transitioning from female to male.
'I'm like 'Hey, you can't deny it anymore' ' said Lydia, who did not want to use her last name out of a desire to protect her child, now 17.
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The school's principal, following guidance that allows students to decide whether to inform parents of their gender identity, refused to meet with her. But she found clues elsewhere — an alternate ID card with the name Toby stuffed in a backpack, and emails between district staff discussing which name to use in the yearbook.
Over time, she discovered her child's transition was an open secret at school — one kept by staff, administrators, a district equity officer, the superintendent, even the president of the local teachers union.
'They were strategizing against me,' Lydia said.
Her experience now lies at the center of a major push by the U.S. Department of Education to clamp down on policies that allow schools to conceal changes in students' gender identity from parents.
In a March press release announcing an investigation into California, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said teachers and counselors should stay out of 'consequential decisions' about children's sexual identities. Officials are probing similar allegations in Maine and Washington state.
In an unprecedented move, the department is threatening to pull millions of dollars in federal education funding from all three states.
But it's putting all schools on notice. In guidance, federal officials warned states and districts that their support of student 'gender plans' had become a 'priority concern.' For educators, the message was as stunning as its rationale. The department is relying on a novel, and according to some critics, incorrect, interpretation of a 50-year-old student privacy law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.
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The law is typically used to safeguard student records and allow parents to inspect them. But it doesn't compel schools to inform parents how their children identify in the classroom. If schools link a record to a student, 'the parent has a right of access to it if they request it,' said LeRoy Rooker, who oversaw compliance with FERPA at the Education Department for over 20 years. But 'the school doesn't have to be proactive and call and say 'Hey, we did this.' '
Department leaders appear to be stretching the reach of the law in an attempt to bolster conservative arguments that schools are meddling in deeply personal decisions that should be left to parents. In response to the Washington investigation, state Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in a statement that his state is the 'latest target in the administration's dangerous war against individuals who are transgender' and that officials are twisting student privacy laws 'to undermine the health, safety and well-being of students.'
To Julie Hamill, a Los Angeles-area attorney who asked the department to investigate, Lydia's story demonstrates that a law designed to keep parents informed is now working against them.
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'The parents are in the dark,' said Hamill of the conservative California Justice Center. 'Parents will not know student records are being withheld unless they've somehow discovered it on their own.'
In tackling the role of schools in student gender transitions, the department is dipping into one of the more emotionally fraught issues in the culture war, one that President Donald Trump campaigned on and weaponized once he was back in the White House.
In one of his first executive orders, Trump said, without evidence, that schools are 'steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation.' In March, McMahon met with 'detransitioners' who reversed their gendering processes. She criticized the 'lengths schools would go to in order to hide this information from parents.'
'The parents are in the dark.'
Julie Hamill, California Justice Center
To many experts, the administration's scrutiny is out of proportion to the scope of the issue. In the overwhelming majority of cases, schools and students are just navigating preferred names and pronouns, and even those situations are infrequent. Multiple sources estimate that about 3% of teens are transgender. Far fewer are likely to approach school officials with a request for a name or pronoun change, said Brian Dittmeier, the director of Public Policy at GLSEN, which advocates for LGBTQ students.
Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, said it is 'rare' for school officials to discuss transitioning with students, and that her group's members say the only gender plans they've completed were done at the request of parents.
At the same time, most Americans agree that schools should get parents' permission before changing a child's pronouns in school records. Polls in California and New Jersey found that roughly three-quarters of adults support mandatory parental notification.
Lydia's story exemplifies that loss of trust in the system.
The artist and former ballerina she thought of as her daughter began identifying as transgender upon entering Academy of the Canyons, a public high school in Santa Clarita, an upscale suburb of Los Angeles. Homeschooled since kindergarten, the teen wanted to pursue art and take advantage of options in their district. The school is located on a college campus where students can attend post-secondary classes while earning their high school diplomas.
'I thought it would be a good opportunity,' Lydia said.
In the fall of 2021, while cleaning the ninth grader's bedroom, Lydia flipped through some art journals. But instead of schoolwork, she found disturbing sketches of bloody body parts and notes about wanting a chest binder, top surgery and a new name.
'Shocked and scared' that her child might be suicidal, her thoughts turned immediately to a friend of her son's who'd recently taken his own life, apparently without warning.
'No suicide notes. No threats,' she recalled. 'The ones that never use it as a weapon are the ones that follow through.'
She began searching for answers online. Initially, she only found sites about supporting a child's transition — advice she rejected.
Unlike many parents in her shoes, she's neither conservative nor religious. In fact, she quipped, an outsider might have assumed she was 'the poster mom for transitioning my kid.'
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She described her own parents — a Black father and a Jewish mother — as 'hippie artists' who raised her to be a 'free thinker' without religion. Lydia's mother changed her name to Michael in the 1960s because it was easier to make it in the art world with a man's name. A lifelong Democrat, Lydia voted against a ban on gay marriage when it was on the state ballot in 2008.
But when it came time to have kids of her own, she embraced more conservative values, wanting to 'protect their childhood.'
Speaking as a liberal, Lydia said, 'I really should have been like 'Yeah, sure, explore your transgenderism.'' But instead, she did the opposite, taking a hard line against the shift. 'I said ' I love you, but I'm not affirming you. This is not real.' '
That view belies a scientific consensus that some children can identify differently as young as 3 or 4. Other research shows children can experience strong distress due to gender dysphoria — feeling that their sex was misassigned at birth — starting at age 7.
'I love you, but I'm not affirming you.'
Lydia, California mom
In attempting to explain what was happening with her child, Lydia turned to a controversial theory of researcher Lisa Littman. In a 2018 paper, the former Brown University scientist described the rise in rapid onset gender dysphoria among adolescents as a 'contagion' driven by peer pressure and social media.
'I did what every parent did during the pandemic — let their kid be online way too much,' Lydia said.
Littman's research methods drew criticism from her own university and the broader research community because she based her conclusions largely on reports from self-selecting parents recruited from online forums that were unsupportive, or at least skeptical, of gender transition. They included 4thwavenow, which labels itself as 'a community of people who question the medicalization of gender-atypical youth.'
Littman later published an amended version of the paper, responding to the controversy and clarifying that the behavior she observed did not amount to a formal diagnosis. Her work, however, continues to drive conservative calls to eliminate trans-inclusive policies in school and inspire the views of the Trump administration — and Lydia.
'There is no such thing as a trans child,' Lydia said.
It is a debate where the voices of kids directly affected are often absent. J.J. Koechell, a Wisconsin 20-year-old, transitioned in sixth grade after a suicide attempt. He now advocates for other LGBTQ students he says are 'entitled to some privacy and consent.'
'They're trying to figure things out and they don't want to get it wrong. To disappoint parents is a lot of weight on a struggling youth.'
He watched the school district he attended, Kettle-Moraine, ban Pride flags and 'safe spaces.' In 2023, as the result of a lawsuit, leaders stopped allowing staff to refer to students by different names and pronouns without parents' permission. Some staff members retired or resigned over the controversy, including a librarian Koechell trusted. Koechell dropped out and is now finishing high school online.
'My teachers were all I had at school. I didn't have any friends,' he said. 'Coming out was a matter of life and death for me. My identity wasn't and still isn't optional.'
Protecting students like Koechell is the purpose of a new California law — Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today's Youth, also known as the 'SAFETY Act.' It prohibits schools from requiring staff to disclose a child's gender identity to their parents.
In announcing the Department of Education's investigation of the state, Secretary McMahon said the law 'appears to conflict with FERPA.' But GLSEN's Dittmeier highlighted that the legislation still requires schools to comply with the federal privacy law — and honor parents' requests for records.
'Coming out was a matter of life and death for me. My identity wasn't and still isn't optional.'
J.J. Koechell, trans student advocate
One department staffer is worried where the investigation could lead.
'This is irregular, based on our history — to take up an allegation [with] no official complaint, but one that is motivated by an attorney group that is bending the department's ear about something,' said an employee familiar with the case who asked to speak anonymously to protect his job. He said the administration's goal is to pressure states and districts into rescinding policies that allow students to decide when to go public with their gender identity. 'This will result in districts adopting forced outing and will result in harming children.'
In California, the debate over parental notification was raging long before the current controversy.
In 2023, police removed state Superintendent Tony Thurmond from a meeting in the Chino Valley Unified School District after a tense exchange with board members over the district's parental notification policy. He warned the board that their policy could 'put our students at risk because they may not be in homes where they can be safe.' The state later filed a lawsuit against the district as well as others that passed similar measures.
Continuing its battle with Thurmond, Chino Valley is now suing the state over the SAFETY Act, saying that minors are 'too young to make life-altering decisions' without their parents.
National data show that less than a third of trans and nonbinary students say their home is gender-affirming. A 2021 study found that transgender adolescents assigned female at birth were more likely than other teens to report being psychologically traumatized by parents or other adults in the home.
'There have been kids whose parents have physically abused them and kicked them out of the house when this information is disclosed,' said Amelia Vance, president of the Public Interest Privacy Center and an expert on student privacy.
Even before California passed the SAFETY Act, the state education agency and the California School Boards Association urged schools to get students' permission before informing parents about changes in their gender identity. When officials at Hart Unified High School District refused to meet with Lydia, they cited a state law that protects trans students' access to programs, sports and facilities that align with their gender identity.
On the advice of an advocacy group, Lydia initially filed a public records request in search of a 'secret social transition' plan she believed Academy of the Canyons maintained. She also asked for communications between her child and teachers using the 'non-birth name.'
The district turned her down.
Contacted by The 74, Hart Unified spokeswoman Debbie Dunn declined to answer questions about the investigation or Lydia's experience, but said officials would 'continue to follow the laws and procedures applicable to the district.'
In January 2023, Lydia spoke at a school board meeting about being shut out by the district. Her story caught the attention of Board Member Joe Messina, a conservative radio talk show host.
'She came up to the podium one night and she was crying,' he said. 'She looked at the superintendent and said, 'I've reached out to you. You've not called me back'. She looked to the trustee who handles her area and she said, 'I've left you four messages. You've never called me back.' '
'There have been kids whose parents have physically abused them and kicked them out of the house when this information is disclosed.'
Amelia Vance, Public Interest Privacy Center
Messina and Lydia talked after the meeting, and he connected her with the Pacific Justice Institute, a right-leaning law firm.
He noted that the issue transcended their political differences. 'Lydia's a lifelong Democrat, and I'm an outspoken Republican,' Messina said. 'For her and I to come together — the rest of the world would say, 'What's wrong with you people?''
Even with advocates on her side, Lydia continued to face obstacles. For months, the Academy of the Canyons declined to release an autobiographical English essay written by her child under the name Toby.
The district finally turned it over on advice from their lawyers. The essay revealed the child's trepidation about coming out to Lydia. The piece recounted a moment before the pandemic, when the student, then 11, broached the subject of being queer. Lydia said her child was first exposed to LGBTQ issues while participating in a homeschool theater group.
'The weather was overcast, and we were driving home from theater rehearsal,' the then-10th grader wrote. 'Once again summoning all my courage, I mentioned to her that one of my friends had confided in me about their attraction to girls, and that I too might be queer. Unfortunately, my mom's immediate response was dismissive and critical.'
As parent-child confrontations often go, Lydia remembers it differently. She said she treated the declaration as a teachable moment.'We talked about what that word meant,' she said, 'and why I felt she had time as she grew up to really know what sexual orientation she would be.'
In a memo, the district's lawyers also named the elephant in the room — that officials had been withholding the essay out of a desire to shield the child's shifting gender identity.
'In general, parents have the statutory right to review a student's classwork/homework,' the memo stated. 'This issue becomes clouded … if the classwork could reveal a student's gender identity/expression.'
Despite refusing to accept that her child was transgender, Lydia said she tried to stay connected. In 2023, they attended over a dozen concerts together, seeing Hozier, Bastille and Penelope Scott — experiences that Lydia called 'part of the healing process.' The two went on a long-promised trip to Europe, during which Lydia gave her child an ultimatum: stop identifying as a boy or go back to being homeschooled. That fall, the school agreed to honor Lydia's wishes to cease social transitioning, but her child still resisted, asking teachers to continue using the name Toby.
This time, the district let Lydia know.
Lydia did not make her child available for an interview, saying 'she isn't ready to tell her side of the story.'
Nearly two years later, she says her child, who graduated from high school last week, 'wants to put it all behind her.' While the teen identifies as a girl, the changes have been subtle. There are days when she dresses in what her mom called 'oversized, ugly boy shirts' and others when she does her makeup and wears more feminine clothes. Recently, she switched back to her birth name on all of her social media accounts.
'I get a little choked up,' Lydia said, 'but that's pretty huge.'
The story might have ended there, but Lydia's two-minute plea to the Hart school board, shared across social media, reached other parent rights advocates just as Trump renewed his campaign for the White House. When the president took office, Hamill, with the California Justice Center, seized the opportunity to file a complaint with an administration guided by Project 2025, the right-wing Heritage Foundation's blueprint for the president's second term.
Requiring schools to notify parents if a student changes their gender identity, which six states already do, is one of the tenets of the plan. Heritage expert Lindsey Burke, who joined the department Friday, also wants Congress to give FERPA more teeth by allowing parents to sue under the law. Currently, parents can only file a grievance with their state or the Education Department's privacy office — complaints that can languish for years.
Privacy laws 'are a core part of [the administration's] arguments for how parental rights need to be respected and strengthened,' said Vance, the privacy expert. But the potential for lawsuits under FERPA, she added 'would be extremely messy and expensive for schools.'
In April, the House education committee advanced a bill — the PROTECT Kids Act — that would require elementary and middle schools to secure parental consent before students change their pronouns or preferred names or use different bathrooms or locker rooms.
The committee debate demonstrated the deep divisions over gender identity and how schools should accommodate LGBTQ students. Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat who is gay, offered a personal story.
'When I came out to my parents, it was at a time, place and manner of my own choosing,' he said. 'I would not have wanted anyone else to make that decision for me.'
To Hamill, gender transition is much more than 'coming out' because it can lead to physical changes that some young adults later regret. Research shows that figure is about 1%, a fraction of those who undergo surgery. Even so, she said California's policies add up to an elaborate 'concealment scheme' that pits children against their parents.
'If you suspect the parents are abusive and they're going to harm the child, you have to report that to [child protective services],' she said. 'But the government cannot by default assume that every parent is harmful and is going to reject and hurt their children.'