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California ordered to pay $4.5 million in fees after losing transgender rule case

March 31, 2026

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

A federal court on Monday ordered California to pay $4.53 million in attorney’s fees to lawyers who successfully challenged the state’s prohibition against public schools informing parents of their child’s transgender status.

The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California awarded the fees to Thomas More Society attorneys. The Thomas More Society is a conservative Catholic public-interest law firm that represented the plaintiffs in a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of parents who argued a California law violated their religion and due process rights.

In 2023, two Southern California school teachers sued their school district seeking an exemption from the district’s policies regarding informing parents of transition status and pronouns. They were later joined by a group of Christian parents whose children had identified as transgender at school. 

The district court ruled in favor of the teachers and parents. However, an appeals court put that order on hold while the state appealed.

In a mixed ruling earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled in favor of the parents’ arguments that they are the “primary protectors” of their children and that they have a right to “guide the religious development of their children.”

However, California is still fighting the case. The state recently filed a motion to change the injunction blocking the state’s prohibition on schools informing parents of their child’s gender status.

In deciding to award the plaintiffs’ attorneys more than $4.5 million, Judge Roger T. Benitez said California engaged in “litigation intransigence” in the case.

California filed repeated motions to dismiss the case, filed appeals before rulings and withdrew arguments multiple times. Attorneys for the plaintiffs had to spend more than an unusual amount of time on countering these measures, the judge said.

“In short, if Plaintiffs’ counsel spent time on the case that would normally be considered unnecessary, it was time most likely required to overcome the defendants’ litigation strategy of resisting at all junctures,” Benitez wrote in his order on attorneys’ fees.

 


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A 2024 survey showed 39% of California transgender and nonbinary youth have considered suicide. This number has dropped significantly from 54% in 2022 after this rule was implemented. It’s a shame there’s so much stigma surrounding this issue and so many who act on their negative feelings about transgender people. There have always been transgender individuals in every society whether we choose to recognize them or not. Most transgender youth have parents who are understanding, but for the few who deal with intolerance from family members, I believe these are the ones most likely to commit suicide.


-36

No matter what the percentile is you come up with, it is still a mental illness in whole no matter what the suicide rate is!!!


15

It’s a mental illness. Catering to it, enabling it, facilitating surgical mutilation for those suffering from it, and concealing minors afflicted with it from their parents is wrong. The fact that the state of California would do this, and the fact that you seem to support this, is monstrous.


36

According to a report from the BBC, “Based on major medical and mental health organizations—including the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization (WHO)—being transgender is not a mental illness.”


As I said, every society in history has had transgender individuals living within it. Some societies have accepted it. A good example are the “two spirit” people of various Native American tribes, including the Sioux, Navajo and Zuni. Samoa is also a place where transgenderism is accepted as well as places in South Asia. In first world nations, places like Sweden, Canada and Iceland have broad protections for their transgender citizens. It seemed like we were moving in that direction until recently.


At any rate, please don’t confuse your feelings about something with the scientific reality. You also might feel that climate change is a hoax, but that would also be contrary to the scientific evidence.


-14

Hah! Look up gender dysphoria, then look up the rate of mental health disorders associated with transgenders and other such folks. And climate change is real, and climate has continually changed ever since earth had a climate. But man made climate change is as bogus as the alarmist papers generated about it simply to get funding.


12

According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. Gender Dysphoria is the clinical, psychological distress caused by this incongruence. While many trans people experience dysphoria, not all do; transgender is an identity, while gender dysphoria is a diagnosis.”


Funny that you never actually provide any fact based evidence for your opinions.


And, by the way, according to NASA (you know, the agency that is sending people to the moon), “More than 99% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change, according to studies published in 2021. This updated consensus, based on a survey of over 88,000 studies, reflects near-unanimous agreement in the scientific community, rising from a previously established 97% consensus found in earlier research.”


But, don’t let me interfere with your feelings.


-5

“Sex assigned at birth”; yeah, that’s so scientific!


-1

Don’t waste your time telling the brainwashed radical left loon Mr. Trask that his “climate change” belief is bogus. Him and Al Gore can believe in the climate change scam if they want.


Us common sense folks know better than to believe that hogwash!!!!!


2

Yeah; weren’t we all supposed to be dead, and coastal cities wiped out like 20 years ago or something?…


1

So are the misguided California officials who pushed this ill-conceived position going to pay the 4.5 million judgement? I know the answer but heck 4.5 million would likely equal less than one moths compensation for those officials, or only a few % of the taxpayer funds funneled to Governor Newson’s wife’s so called charity.


33

DemoNcrats have always been THE traitorous intransigence amongst us.


FIGHT FOR YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS!


#NEVERVoteDemoNcratAgain


#VoteRepublican


31

The arrogance of these pronoun fascists is breathtaking. We all remember when it was “all we want is the right to marry who we love”.


32

California!!! stop placing our tax dollars at risk with your woke lunacy…


65

My favorite part of this weird tale is the State trying to create precedent in circumventing parental involvement because they apparently “ know” what’s best for everybody involved.

It’s the opposite of the Rights of the Individual that our Constitution and Bill of Rights enshrine.

It can be fun to watch the contortions of our AG , Rob Bonta and others try to defend the State’s obvious overreach with this one.


69

Correction: $0.11 per Californian!!!!


-23

Yep it calcs out to a whopping $0.11 per Californian…..ABSOLUTELY MONEY WELL SPENT!!!!


Hopefully california gets better leadership soon to right the course of the greatest state in the union. California has been off course for far too long!!!!


2

Common sense ruling in my opinion. If it cost me a few extra tax dollars for this case to be settled with the correct common sense ruling, I’m all for it.


It calcs out to $8.70 per Californian-money well spent!!!!


5

Taxpayers lose again


53