Update on California LGBTQ+ Opportunities & Challenges
By Shay Franco Clausen, Equality California
With the 2024 November General Election fast approaching, there are critical races at all levels of government that will determine the future of LGBTQ+ rights in California. With the possibility of a second Trump Administration looming, it is critical to elect a pro-equality majority in the house, making the races like those of Will Rollins in CA-41,George Whitsides in (CA-27), Derek Tran in (CA-45), and Dave Min (CA-47) must-wins for the LGBTQ+ community. Sadly, school board members in California are taking cues straight from the far-right playbook of congress members like anti-LGBTQ+ speaker Mike Johnson and have increasingly targeted LGBTQ+ with dangerous policies seeking to ban books, terrorize teachers, and make transgender youth afraid to be themselves at school. In response local parents, students and teachers led successful recall campaigns against extremist board members in the Orange, Temecula, and Woodland Unified School Districts. With more than 2,000 school board seats up in California this November, replacing anti-LGBTQ+ incumbents with school board members who will champion the rights of all students is critical.
The statewide ballot has once again become a battleground for LGBTQ+ rights in California, with anti-LGBTQ+ extremists attempting to qualify an initiative for the November 2024 ballot that would have stripped away rights and protections from transgender youth, including banning essential healthcare for transgender youth, forcibly outing transgender students without consent or regard for their safety, and banning transgender youth from accessing school facilities or playing sports that correspond with their gender identity. Though the battle is far from over, the dangerous initiative thankfully did not meet the required signature threshold to appear on the ballot. Fortunately, voters will find ACA 5 — a constitutional amendment that will enshrine the fundamental right to marry in California regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity — on their ballots. This measure will remove the stain of Proposition 8 from the California Constitution, which still states that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” protecting same-sex and interracial couples from the whims of an extremist Supreme Court.
In Sacramento, Assemblymember Ward and the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus have introduced AB 1955, the SAFETY Act, that will strengthen existing California protections against school policies that forcibly out LGBTQ+ students, provide critical resources to parents and families of LGBTQ+ students as they work towards acceptance on their own terms, and protect educators who face retaliatory actions from administrators and school boards for creating inclusive school environments for their students. The SAFETY Act passed out of the Senate and is currently making its way through the Assembly. Expanding access to fertility and infertility care, including IVF, is also a top priority for the LGBTQ+ community this year. Despite recent advancements in access to abortion and contraception following the Dobbs decision, California remains behind other states when it comes to guaranteeing access to fertility care. Without insurance coverage, out-of-pocket costs for fertility treatments like IVF are insurmountable for most Californians and health plans still impose invasive hurdles to accessing care that exclude many LGBTQ+ couples. SB 729 by Senator Caroline Menjivar is currently making its way through the Legislature and will require insurance coverage for infertility treatments like IVF, as well as update the definition of “infertility” to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ family planning experiences. California must continue to be a leader in the fight for full reproductive freedom, especially as attacks on IVF continue to gain momentum across the country.
You can learn more about, and support, these critical efforts being led by our partners at Equality California by visiting www.eqca.org
