Parental Rights Lawsuits Spread to Washington and New Jersey After Supreme Court's Mirabelli Order

A Supreme Court order from March 2026 is reshaping the legal fight over how schools and state agencies handle kids' gender identity, and it's spreading fast.

The order came in Mirabelli v. Bonta, out of the Escondido Union School District in California. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez had ruled that California could not force teachers to hide a student's gender transition from parents. The state appealed. The Supreme Court restored Benitez's injunction while the case works through the lower courts, according to reporting from Fox News and the Daily Signal.

That's an important distinction: the Supreme Court did not issue a final merits ruling. It reinstated an injunction pending litigation. Legal scholar Jonathan Turley, quoted at the time, said the order "reflects a clear notion of the likelihood to prevail on the merits," but the underlying case is still being litigated in the lower courts.

Still, the order settled a key procedural question: parents have legal standing to sue over these policies before their kids are harmed. Mark Rienzi of the religious-liberty group Becket, which filed a brief in the case, said at the time that "parents' fundamental right to raise their children according to their faith doesn't stop at the schoolhouse door."

Washington State: Runaway Shelters and a 'Sword of Damocles'

That standing question is now central to a separate fight in Washington state. In 2023, Washington lawmakers changed the rules for youth shelters. Normally, shelters must notify parents within 72 hours when a runaway child shows up, per the Daily Signal. The law allows an exception for "compelling reasons," originally meant for cases of abuse or neglect. The 2023 change added a new compelling reason: a child seeking what the law calls gender-affirming care.

Five sets of parents whose children have gender dysphoria sued, arguing the law violates their parental rights by giving shelters cover to hide a runaway child's location from them. Lower courts dismissed the suit, ruling the parents hadn't shown a concrete injury. The Supreme Court agreed in June 2026 to hear the case, and First Liberty Institute filed its opening brief this week.

Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, told the Daily Signal that Mirabelli strengthens the parents' case. "If anything, the stakes are even higher in this case because parents cannot opt out by changing schools," Gardner said. "They stand to lose their kids simply by living in the state."

The brief argues Washington's law creates a "Sword of Damocles" over parents, forcing them to alter how they parent out of fear their child will run away and disappear from their knowledge entirely.

Washington lawmakers were explicit about their reasoning. State Sen. Marko Liias, a Democrat, said the law addresses situations where "a young person is seeking gender-affirming care in the face of opposition and hostility from their family," and where forcing reunification would cut off a vulnerable teen from care lawmakers believe they're entitled to. That's the stated rationale for the exception, not a hidden motive, and the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether it survives constitutional scrutiny.

New Jersey: The Chathams School District

A parallel lawsuit is playing out against the School District of the Chathams in New Jersey. Under the district's policy, students can change their name and gender identity in school records, use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their claimed identity, and a guidance counselor decides how much, if anything, parents are told, according to Fox News.

The Thomas More Society, representing Moms for Liberty among other plaintiffs, filed suit arguing the policy conflicts with Mirabelli. Senior counsel Christopher Ferrara told Fox News Digital that the Third Circuit has issued a similar ruling and that parents have standing "whether or not the child is actually transitioning," because the policy itself is what injures them by hiding information.

Ferrara also raised a separate concern: students who don't want to share locker rooms or bathrooms with the opposite sex, and students who could face discipline for not using a classmate's preferred pronouns. Moms for Liberty CEO Tina Descovich made the same disciplinary-code argument in the Fox News report.

None of these three cases, Washington's shelter law, the Chathams policy, or the underlying Mirabelli litigation itself, has reached a final judgment. The Supreme Court has not scheduled oral arguments in the Washington case as of this week. The Chathams lawsuit is in its early stages in New Jersey courts. What's settled, for now, is only that parents get a hearing. Whether they win is still an open question the courts have not answered.