207. Parents' Rights vs. School Secrecy: Laura Powell on Mirabelli v. Bonta at the Supreme Court

About this episode

Laura Powell discusses the Mirabelli v. Bonta case and its implications for parents' rights and school secrecy regarding children's gender identity.

Joining me today is Laura Powell, an attorney and founder of Californians for Good Governance, to break down one of the most important parents' rights cases in recent history: Mirabelli v. Bonta. We trace how California schools came to adopt policies that require staff to conceal a child's gender identity — including name and pronoun changes at school — from their own parents, and how a federal lawsuit has finally forced this issue all the way to the Supreme Court. Laura walks me through the legal history in California, from a 2014 state law that said nothing about parental secrecy to a decade of school districts acting as though it did. We discuss the December 2024 federal injunction, the Ninth Circuit's stay, and the landmark March 2025 Supreme Court opinion in which six justices made strong, unambiguous statements affirming that parents have a constitutional right to know how their children are being raised and educated. We also pull apart the arguments used to justify these secrecy policies — the abuse narrative, the suicide risk claim, and the "children's rights to privacy" framing — and show why none of them hold up to scrutiny. From a psychological standpoint, I weigh in…

People in this episode

Host: Stephanie Winn

Guest: Laura Powell

Topics covered

• parents' rights
• school policies
• gender identity
• legal history
• Supreme Court
• adolescent development
• privacy rights

Keywords

• parents' rights
• school secrecy
• gender identity
• Supreme Court
• California law
• adolescent development
• privacy
• legal case
• Mirabelli v. Bonta

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Californians for Good Governance

Places: California

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