California Lawmakers Coninue Effort to Erode Parental Rights With New Mental Health Bill For Minors

The onward push continues by California Democrats to systematically replace parents with school counselors, teachers, mental health providers, abortion counselors, gender-affirming transsexual care specialists, and a number of other adults willing to provide vaccines, medications, opposite-sex hormones, and gender surgeries, as well as treatment for sexual violence and rape – without any parental consent, or even knowledge.

A new bill, Assembly Bill 665 by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo from Los Angeles, would allow children as young as 12 years to consent to mental health treatment or counseling without parental approval or involvement, reports the California Globe.

“California is failing on children’s mental health and preventive care,” the text of the bill reads.

The catch is that many of the mental health issues cited as reasons for Carillo’s bill can be directly traced to the way Golden State leaders devastated the lives of millions of children when Governor Gavin Newsom ordered every school in the state closed during the COVID pandemic, even as other states kept their schools open.

California’s kids were locked down, forced into home confinement and attending online school sessions from the family kitchen table or living room sofa, separated from friends, teachers, sports, clubs, dances, recess, parks, social activities of every kind.

As a result, studies are now revealing children not only lost an entire year of learning, but suffered stunted social and mental development. A staggering number of youth fell into a deep depression and many still haven’t recovered.

Assembly Bill 665 is the latest in a string of California state bills aimed at authorizing children to seek medical care without parental oversight and approval.

It is already legal in California to allow a minor who is 12 years of age to consent to mental health treatment or counseling on an outpatient or residential shelter basis, “if the minor is mature enough to participate intelligently in the outpatient services or residential shelter services, or if the minor is the alleged victim of incest or child abuse.”

Senate Bill 543 was authored by then-Democrat Sen. Mark Leno from in 2010 and sponsored by Equality California, the National Association of Social Workers California Chapter, Mental Health America of Northern California and the Gay Straight Alliance Network. That legislation was signed into law by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the stated purpose of helping Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transsexual and homeless youths.

Carrillo’s bill would strike the requirement that a child must present a danger of serious physical or mental harm to themselves or to others, or be the alleged victim of incest or child abuse before they can agree to mental health treatment or counseling on an outpatient basis, or enter into residential shelter services. The bill would also require whoever is treating the child to hold a consultation with the child ahead of treatment to determine whether or not to include the child’s parents, according to the Globe.

A majority of the cited “mental health treatment or counseling services” in the bill would be with government agencies and professionals providing the treatment would be  “a marriage and family therapist, a licensed educational psychologist, a credentialed school psychologist, a clinical psychologist, or the chief administrator of an agency.”

The proposed legislation would allow a 12-year-old to move into a residential shelter:

“Residential shelter services” in these cases means: “The provision of residential and other support services to minors on a temporary or emergency basis in a facility that services only minors by a governmental agency, a person or agency having a contract with a governmental agency to provide these services, an agency that receives funding from community funds, or a licensed community care facility or crisis resolution center.”

Meanwhile, the Chico Unified School District in northern California, is facing considerable public backlash for its so-called “Parental Secret Policy,” under which it is accused of violating parental rights by transitioning an 11-year-old’s gender in secret, according to Fox News Digital.

The policy, based on guidance from the California Department of Education, directs the district’s 23 schools to only inform parents of their child pursuing or considering a gender transition with the student’s prior written consent, except for extraordinary situations. Proponents argue the policy is designed to protect student privacy and critics charge the policy is an abuse of parental authority.

Last month, Aurora Regino filed a lawsuit against the district — specifically Superintendent Kelly Staley and the Board of Education’s five members — that alleged her daughter’s school helped the young student transition her gender in secret without parental consent during the 2021-2022 school year.

“They were talking to my daughter about different support groups in town to help her with her transition and then discussed breast binding with my daughter that I had no knowledge of,” Regino told Fox News’ Claudia Cowan on the “America’s Newsroom” program. “I just want them to stop — stop keeping parents in the dark.”

The alleged secret transitioning process began after the daughter, a fifth-grader at the time, told a school counselor that she “felt like a boy,” according to the complaint filed by Regino’s attorneys. Regino has said her daughter, who now again identifies as a female, was given a boy’s name and identity by the counselor without any consultation with Regino.

“The parents of Chico Unified School District are rightfully and understandably outraged at the unconscionable behavior of the school district,” said Teri DuBose, a representative of United States Representative Doug LaMalfa, whose congressional district includes Chico. “Know that the congressman shares your outrage and demands accountability from Chico Unified School District. It is detestable that a public school system would think that it’s acceptable to pressure an impressionable child to change their gender, their name, and their pronouns and make them hide it from their parents. As a fellow parent, the congressman understands that it is our God-given duty to protect our children, and a big part of that is being involved in children’s education and demanding transparency from school administrators and educators.”

The school policy under scrutiny in an offshoot of California state law designed to protect transgender students from discrimination.

The education department’s guidance calls for schools to require a student’s consent in order to inform parents about gender transitions unless there exist “compelling circumstances related to student health and safety” to waive the consent requirements. That said, the guidance doesn’t state any minimum age, so, in theory, a school wouldn’t even need to inform parents if a kindergartener sought to transition their gender.

Filed in federal court, Regino’s lawsuit argues the Chico Unified School District’s policy violates her “fundamental right” as a parent to direct the upbringing of her children, as is protected by the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The complaint seeks a judgment declaring the district’s policy unconstitutional and an injunction that prevents the district from continuing to enforce its policy.

“Parents from all walks of life are justifiably upset by the district’s Parental Secrecy Policy, and the meeting on Wednesday proves it,” Eric Sell, who’s representing Regino as associate counsel at the Center for American Liberty, told Fox News Digital. “Not only does the policy keep parents in the dark on matters of significant importance in their child’s life, it also authorizes schools to secretly perform substandard psychological treatment on students struggling with their gender in the form of social transitioning.”

“Only parents and trained mental health professionals should guide such powerful treatment, not unqualified school staff,” Sell continued. “We’re hopeful the court will enjoin further enforcement of this dangerous policy.”