California Gov. Newsom vetoes one pro-trans bill; will he sign others?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would require an inclusive view of gender in health education courses, causing some to further question his commitment to transgender equality.

Republican leaders had urged Newsom to veto Assembly Bill 86, which would have required the adoption of curriculum materials for K-8 health education in keeping with the framework the state approved for public schools in 2019. Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said the bill promoted “controversial gender theories” and that the framework itself was controversial.

“For third grade students the framework states, ‘When providing instruction on sexual and reproductive organs, teachers can introduce the concept that gender does not always match the sexual and reproductive organs described,’” Jones wrote to Newsom in a letter dated September 26. “Teaching controversial gender theories to students as young as eight or nine years old is not a practice that most Californians support, nor want to see happening in our schools.”

Newsom vetoed the bill last Wednesday. In his veto message, he said the legislation should wait until a state study of health curricula was done, The Sacramento Bee reports.

Related: Why transgender people are not feeling Gavin Newsom

The governor has become a nationally prominent figure with his trolling of Donald Trump, and he has been mentioned as a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. He has long been an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, including trans people, but he drew criticism in March, when on the first episode of his podcast, he agreed with far-right figure Charlie Kirk that it was “deeply unfair” for trans women and girls to compete in sports alongside cis females. Kirk, who was assassinated in September, was known for anti-LGBTQ+ and especially anti-trans rhetoric. However, California has sued the Trump administration over its demand that the state change its trans-inclusive sports policy.

Newsom has until the end of this week to sign or veto several other bills addressing trans or LGBTQ+ rights. In California, governors can also choose to neither sign nor veto a bill and let it become law without their signature.

Assembly Bill 82/Senate Bill 497 would strengthen confidentiality in health care, including for drugs used in gender-affirming care and abortion. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a gay man and a Democrat, said it “would expand on the California ‘State of Refuge’ law he wrote and passed in 2022 by preventing other states and private entities from subpoenaing private medical records,” Trans News Network reports.

AB 1084 would make it easier to change one’s name and gender on official documents, while SB 59 would “ensure that older court records of name changes can’t be used to out or dox trans people,” according to the outlet. SB 418 would strengthen nondiscrimination requirements for insurance plans and mandate that they cover up to a year’s worth of prescribed hormones.

Related: How the respectability politics of fairness will lead us nowhere

AB 554 would require insurers to cover HIV prevention drugs without prior authorization. AB 727 would assure that universities provide all students with suicide hotline information, including numbers for LGBTQ-focused hotlines, something especially important now that the Trump administration has closed the federally funded one tailored for LGBTQ+ youth. Private hotlines, such as the one operated by the Trevor Project, are still available.

Under AB 678, state housing programs would have to coordinate with LGBTQ+ groups to ensure nondiscrimination in services for people experiencing homelessness. SB 590 would strengthen paid family leave protections to make them more inclusive of LGBTQ+ families. SB 450 would let out-of-state queer couples adopting California-born children do so through California’s channels, which are more LGBTQ-friendly than those in many other states.

“I know that it is so painful for any trans person that is sitting there and reading social media and watching the news and there are people debating pros and cons about your existence — it's incredibly toxic and painful,” Wiener told Trans News Network. “Even with all that, on these bills, all or just about all of my Democratic colleagues voted for it, even including the ones that are in very purple districts. And so that gives me hope.”