The Supreme Court endangers trans students through the shadow docket

 On Monday night, through their so-called shadow docket, in which a case isn't argued before them and they weigh in, anyway, the Supreme Court further endangered trans kids. The case is  Mirabelli v. Bonta out of California, in which parents are challenging the California law that bars school districts from outing trans kids to their parents. 

As always, I highly recommend reading Chris Geidner on this. What's concerning, as Chris points out, is the majority is basing some of this on their Mahmoud decision: 

As to the free exercise claim, the decision represents a quick and abrupt expansion of this past term’s Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which I had already called a “dangerous piece of work” at the time.

“California’s policies will likely not survive the strict scrutiny that Mahmoud demands,“ the Monday order declared. The anonymous order sniped at the Ninth Circuit for having relied upon a “not-precedential” decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and having “brushed aside“ Mahmoud “as ‘a narrow decision focused on uniquely coercive “curricular requirements.”’”

Even more alarmingly, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a concurring opinion joined by both Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, echoed that, writing that “[t]he Ninth Circuit (following the Sixth Circuit) significantly misunderstood Mahmoud … and general course correction will allow the case to progress efficiently.“

In other words, the Mahmoud opinion was the low-water water mark for the ways this court plans to use religious freedom to wash away any protections and policies that might be opposed by religious parents.

This is a policy, not a curriculum. And they are applying Mahmoud.

I'd echo the opinion piece in the Boston Globe:  

The majority didn’t just base this on the parents’ First Amendment right to practice their religion freely. It went bigger, embracing a due process right of all parents to raise their children as they see fit, regardless of the consequences.

And the consequences can be dire.