Under the guidance in question, which has since been withdrawn, teachers and school staff were instructed to recognise a student’s gender identity changes and desired pronouns. It also prohibited disclosing students’ identities to their parents or guardians without their consent.
In the suit, the two teachers alleged that the policy violated their free speech and religious beliefs
After nearly a two-year legal battle, which included the case being converted to a class-action suit, US District Judge Roger Benitez ruled in favour of the plaintiffs on 23 December.
Under the order, employees in the California statewide education system are prohibited from “misleading the parent or guardian of a minor child in the education system about their child’s gender presentation at school.”
This includes “directly lying” to the student’s parent or guardian, preventing the parent or guardian from accessing the student’s educational records, and using “a different set of preferred pronouns/names when speaking with the parents than is being used at school.”
Shortly after Judge Benitez’s ruling, the state filed an appeal with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“A stay pending appeal – and at a minimum a brief stay to seek relief from the Court of Appeals – is warranted in this case,” the state wrote in the request.
“The Court has issued a statewide injunction that abruptly enjoins State Defendants from enforcing long-standing state laws that protect vulnerable transgender and gender nonconforming students.
“If the Orders are allowed to stay in effect before the Court of Appeals has a chance to review them, they would irrevocably alter the status quo and will create chaos and confusion among students, parents, teachers, and staff at California’s public schools.”
At the start of the month, the appeals court granted the state a short-term administrative stay of ruling, per Education Week.
The recent development comes more than a year after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the LGBTQIA+ inclusive SAFETY Act into law, which stops school districts from requiring staff to share information about a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents.
It also protects teachers and other school employees from retaliation, like being fired, if they choose not to out a student’s sexuality or gender identity to parents.
Over the last few days, LGBTQIA+ advocates and organisations have called out Judge Benitez’s rulling.
Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the Gender, Sexuality, and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said: “This decision denies the realities the California Legislature recognised when it adopted the SAFETY Act last year, and the Student Success and Opportunity Act back in 2013, to help ensure all students feel safe and respected at school, even if they are not ready or able to be out at home or are navigating a less-than-supportive family dynamic.
“A culture of outing harms everyone—students, families, and school staff alike—by removing opportunities to build trust. LGBTQ+ students deserve to decide on their own terms if, when, and how to come out, and to be able to be themselves at school.”
“The California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus strongly condemns the recent ruling by Judge Benitez in Mirabelli v. Olson. While the decision formally addresses a narrow Escondido Union School District policy, it deliberately injects confusion into the public understanding of the SAFETY Act (AB 1955) and signals an alarming willingness to undermine long-standing constitutional rights to privacy and nondiscrimination protections across California law,” the group wrote.
The complaint targets a policy that would nix coverage under federal health insurance for gender-affirming healthcare.
Published On 1 Jan 20261 Jan 2026
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A group of federal government employees in the United States has filed a class action complaint against President Donald Trump’s administration over a new policy that will eliminate coverage for gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programmes.
The policy took effect with the start of the new year, and on Thursday, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation issued the complaint, acting on behalf of the federal employees.
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The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was named as a defendant.
In an August letter, the OPM stated that, as of 2026, “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” would no longer be covered under health insurance programmes for federal employees and US postal workers.
OPM officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
The complaint argues that the policy is discriminatory on the basis of sex. It asks that the policy be rescinded and seeks payment for economic damages and other relief.
If the issue is not resolved with the OPM, the foundation said that plaintiffs will pursue class claims before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and potentially continue with a class action lawsuit in federal court.
Separately, a group of Democratic state attorneys general last month sued the Trump administration to block proposed rules that would cut children’s access to gender-affirming care, the latest court battle over Trump’s efforts to eliminate legal protections for transgender people.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr has proposed rules that would bar hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children from Medicaid and Medicare and prohibit the Children’s Health Insurance Program from paying for it.
Conor McDermott-Mostowy would like to compete at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games. And he certainly has the talent, desire and ambition to do so.
What he lacks is the money.
“You could definitely reach six figures,” David McFarland, McDermott-Mostowy’s agent, said of what the speedskater needs annually to live and train while chasing his Olympic dream.
In the last year, finding that money has been increasingly difficult because McDermott-Mostowy is gay. Since President Trump returned to the White House in January, bringing with him an agenda that is hostile to diversity, equity and inclusion, sponsors who once embraced LGBTQ+ athletes and initiatives have turned away from the likes of McDermott-Mostowy, with devastating effect.
“There’s definitely been a noticeable shift,” said McFarland, who for decades has represented straight and gay athletes in a number of sports, from the NFL and NBA to professional soccer. “Many brands and speaking opportunities that previously highlighted LGBTQ athletes are now being pulled back or completely going away.”
“And these aren’t just symbolic partnerships,” he added. “They’re vital income opportunities that help athletes fund training, fund their competition and their livelihoods.”
The impact is being felt across a wide range of sports where sponsorship dollars often make the difference between winning and not being able to compete. But it’s especially acute in individual sports where the athletes are the brand and their unique traits — their size, appearance, achievements and even their gender preferences — become the things that attract or repel fans and financial backers.
“What’s most frustrating is that these decisions are rarely about performance,” McFarland said. “They’re about perceptions in the LGBTQ community. And that kind of fear-driven retreat harms everyone involved because, beyond the human costs, it’s also very short-sighted. The LGBTQ community and its allies represent a multitrillion-dollar global market with immense buying power.”
Travis Shumake, the only openly gay driver on the NHRA circuit, ran a career-high five events in 2022 and said he once had deals with major brands such as Mission Foods, Procter & Gamble and Kroger while using a rainbow-colored parachute to slow his dragster.
Kroger is the only one whose support has yet to shrink and as a result, Shumake had to keep his car in its trailer for the final eight months of the year.
And when he did race, his parachute was black.
Travis Shumake competes at the NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in November 2024.
(Marc Sanchez / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“It was looking very optimistic and bright,” said Shumake, who spends about $60,000 for an engine and as much as $25,000 for each run down the dragstrip. “Being the only LGBTQ driver would have been very profitable. I ended last season with plans to run six to eight races. Great conversations were happening with big, big companies. And now it’s, I did one race, completely based on funding.”
“When you’re asking for a $100,000 check,” he added, “it’s very tough for these brands to take that risk for a weekend when there could be a large backlash because of my sexual identity.”
A sponsorship manager for a Fortune 500 company that had previously backed Shumake said he was not authorized to discuss the decision to end its relationship with the driver.
Daniel T. Durbin, director of the Institute of Sports, Media and Society at the USC Annenberg school, said there could be several reasons for that. A shrinking economy has tightened sponsorship budgets, for example. But there’s no doubt the messaging from the White House has had a chilling effect.
“It certainly makes the atmosphere around the issue more difficult because advertising and promotion tied to social change has come under fire by the Trump administration,” Durbin said.
In addition, corporate sponsors that once rallied behind diversity, whether out of conviction or convenience, saw the election results partly as a repudiation of that.
“We may be pissing off 50% of the population if we go down this path. Do we really want to do that with our brand?” Durbin said of the conversations corporations are having.
Backing away from causes such as LGBTQ+ rights doesn’t necessarily mean those corporations were once progressive and are now hypocritical. For many, the only color of the rainbow they care about is green.
“You’re trying to give people a philosophy who don’t have a philosophy,” Durbin said. “And even if they believe in causes, they’re not going to self-destruct their company by taking up a cause they believe in. They’re going to take it up in part because they think it’s positive for the bottom line.
“That’s the way it works.”
As a result, others have had to step up to try to help fill the funding gap. The Out Athlete Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, was recently created to provide financial assistance and other support to LGBTQ+ athletes. McDermott-Mostowy was the first to get a check, after a November event in West Hollywood raised more than $15,000.
“We’re here to help cover their costs because a lot of other people aren’t doing it,” said Cyd Zeigler, a founding board member of the group and co-founder of OutSports, a sports-news website focused on LGBTQ+ issues.
That kind of retrenching, from deep-pocketed corporate sponsors to individuals giving their spare change, is threatening to derail the careers of athletes such as McDermott-Mostowy, who relies on his family and a modest U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee stipend for most of his living and training expenses. And since he’ll turn 27 before the Milano Cortina Olympic Games open in February, he may not be able to wait for the pendulum to swing back to have another chance at being an Olympian.
“I’m 99% sure I qualify for [food] stamps,” said McDermott-Mostowy, who medaled in the 1,500- and 500-meter events in October’s national championships, making him a strong contender for the U.S. heading into the Olympic long track trials Jan. 2-5 in Milwaukee. “What really saves us every year is when we travel. Almost all of our expenses are paid when we’re coming [with] the team.
“If I didn’t make the World Cup one year, I would be ruined.”
McDermott-Mostowy’s past success and his Olympic potential are what he pitches to sponsors, not that he’s gay. But that’s what makes him stand out; if he qualifies for Milano Cortina, he would be one of the few gay athletes on the U.S. team.
“I have always been very open about my sexuality. So that wasn’t really a debate,” he said.
“I have definitely heard from my agent that, behind closed doors, a lot of people are like ‘Oh, we’d love to support queer athletes. But it’s just not a good time to be having that as our public face.’”
The debate isn’t a new one, although it has evolved over the years. Figure skater Amber Glenn, who last year became the first out queer woman to win the U.S. championship, remembers gender preferences being a big topic of discussion ahead of the 2014 Games in Russia, where public support for LGBTQ+ expression is banned.
“At that point I wasn’t out, but I was thinking, ‘What would I do? What would I say?’” Glenn said. “Moving forward I hope that we can make it where people can compete as who they are and not have to worry about anything.
“Figure skating is unique. We have more acceptance and more of a community in the queer space. That’s not the case for all sports. We’re definitely making progress, but we still have a long way to go.”
Conor McDermott-Mostowy hopes to be competing for the U.S. in speedskating at the Milano Cortina Olympic Games in February.
(Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images)
In the meantime, athletes such as McDermott-Mostowy and Shumake may have to find ways to re-present themselves to find new sources of support.
“It’s not like I’m going back in the closet,” said Shumake, who has decided to rent out his dragster to straight drivers next year rather than leave it parked and face bankruptcy. “It’s just that maybe it’s not the main storyline at the moment. I’m trying a bunch of different ways to tell the story, to rebrand.”
“It’s been weird to watch,” added Shumake, who once billed himself as the fastest gay guy on Earth. “I know it will swing back. I also fear, did I make the right choices when I had a partnership with Grindr and I had rainbow parachutes? Like did I come on too strong?
“I’ve chosen to go the gay race car driver route and it’s just a little bit of a slowdown. I don’t think I need to blame myself. It’s just a fear people are having at the moment.”
A fear that’s proving costly to the athletes who can least afford to pay.
