Exclusive — Sonja Shaw: California Has No Right to Stop Parental Notification on Transgenderism

Sonja Shaw, president of the Board of Education of Chino Valley, California, told Breitbart News on Sunday that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the State of California were trying to intimidate parents across the state on transgender policy.

Shaw spoke to Breitbart News Sunday in the wake of an attempt by California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to derail a school board meeting that voted on a policy requiring parents to be notified when their children decide to change genders.

As Breitbart News reported last week, Thurmond was escorted out of the meeting after he tried to stop the policy from being adopted. The policy passed by a 4-1 vote.

OMFG! Chino Valley Unified board President Sonia Shaw just kicked Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Schools, out of their board meeting.

CVUSD is trying to pass a controversial policy to notify parents if a student identifies as transgender.

Video: @SkySpider_ https://t.co/wr3XvCBEyB pic.twitter.com/eIeZEBPHpo

— InMinivanHell (@inminivanhell) July 21, 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration tried to pressure the district not to adopt a policy of parental notification, claiming that it would put student safety at risk — when parents feel exactly the opposite.

Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) sent the board a letter in which he said: “In addition to infringing upon student privacy, forced “outing” of students to their parents is very likely to result in significant emotional, mental, and even physical harm and subject students to discriminatory harassment.”

He also claimed that parental notification “may violate California’s antidiscrimination law,” but Shaw said that was just a ruse.

“They go into ed[ucational] codes and things like that, which are laws, but then there’s that area where it’s ‘guidelines’ … and guidelines, we both know, are not laws. We keep showing them, and telling them, ‘Show us the law that we’re breaking?’ … They can’t do that. That’s why they’re upset.” The state had sent Thurmond to the school board meeting to intimidate the board and the parents — and to send a broader message, Shaw said.

“You have one district stand up against the big bully, and what happens? More districts start to link arms. And then you become a force to reckon with. And — which parents should be,” Shaw concluded.

Shaw said that she had received death threats and had required police protection since the state began to target her district.

Separately, the state is also pressuring Chino Valley and other districts to adopt LGBTQ+ curricula, with Gov. Newsom championing a bill that would allow him to fine school districts that reject state materials.

Shaw said that Newsom was looking to set up a presidential run, and Thurmond wanted to run for governor. But after Thurmond called parents “extremists,” Shaw said, he had hurt himself politically.

I don’t mind being thrown out of a board meeting by extremists. I can take the heat — it’s part of the job. What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away.(2/5) Thread

— Tony Thurmond (@TonyThurmond) July 21, 2023

“If he calls parents ‘extremists,’ that only proves who he is,” Shaw said. She noted that parents had been called “domestic terrorists” by a pressure group working with the Department of Justice and the Biden White House.

She added that Thurmond had changed his story several times about how and why he was ejected from the meeting in an attempt to demonize the school board — when, he claimed, he had been heckling from his seat.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.