Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new bill into law that is being called The SAFETY Act, designed to protect students and employees from forced outings.
It prohibits any school board policy, rule, or administrative regulation that requires forced outings of LGBTQ+ students.
That includes preventing districts from telling parents about a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, preferred pronouns, or gender expression without the student’s consent.
PFLAG Fresno was one of the organizations to sign on in support of the bill. President Drew Harbaugh said he was relieved to see it signed into law.
“One of the things that the policies of forced outing does is create a rift of trust, of distrust between educators and students a lot of times, students, young adults, they do feel more comfortable coming out to their friends at school, to their peers, to a trusted school counselor to a trusted teacher as a stepping stone for them being able to come out at home,” said Harbaugh.
Assemblyman Jim Patterson voted against AB 1955. In a statement to Action News, he said quote,