Newsom’s SB 1114 shields gender identity data from public view

“The Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on the LGBTQ community, using medical records to target U.S. servicemembers and civilians alike, hurting countless people and betraying hard-won trust. California will not stand for it,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sept. 26 as he signed SB 1114 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon. Newsom framed the package as a response to federal attacks: “California will not stand for it.”¹ The California Family Council, which wrote to Cabaldon on behalf of more than 2,000 churches across the state, read the same bill and reached the opposite verdict². For parents, the question is simple: what does the state know about their children, and who can see it?

SB 1114 builds the wall in two layers. The first bars personally identifiable SOGISC data collected under the LGBTI Disparities Reduction Act or by public postsecondary institutions from being disclosed to entities outside California state or local government, subject to specified exceptions. That shield covers data collected by public colleges and universities, and it reaches any information that "could reasonably be used to infer a persons transgender or intersex status." The second layer makes the information "confidential and shall be exempt from disclosure by specified state entities under the California Public Records Act³." The California Family Council told Sen. Cabaldon on March 24 that the bill can prevent parents from learning information about their own minor children collected by public schools. It also warned that broad nondisclosure rules limit the ability of the public, researchers and oversight bodies to evaluate how agencies collect and use the data. The council said SB 1114 protects bureaucratic secrecy at the expense of parents and families, not children². Family Brief agrees. A child belongs to a family before a state agency, and a government that gathers identity data on children while locking out their mothers and fathers has the order backwards. If the data is held for the child's good, why must the parents be outside the wall?

SB 1114 was one bill in a larger state program, and the rest of the package shows where California is putting its weight. The same signing session covered AB 1930 by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a separate measure on subpoenas and discovery requests for information about abortion or gender-affirming health care services. Newsom's office says the package requires providers and institutions to notify the Attorney General of such subpoenas and authorizes the Attorney General to respond and intervene. The 2026-27 Budget Act appropriates $66 million to the Department of Health Care Access and Information. Of that amount, $10 million supports what the state calls gender affirming care services for children and youth¹. The data wall has its own clock: once state entities notify the Legislature they have the automation capability, the Department of Social Services must comply no later than January 1, 2028³.

Newsom's case is privacy from Washington. Newsom cast the bill as a response to the use of medical records to target service members and civilians, KQED reports.

That is the strongest defense, and it names one adversary: Washington.

The bill's text does not stop at Washington: it bars identifiable disclosure "to any entity outside of California state or local government, or an authorized agency thereof," subject to specified exceptions³. Guarding records from a federal subpoena is one thing; putting a child's own parents on the far side of the wall is another.

Sacramento should amend SB 1114 to guarantee parents access to their minor children’s state-held identity information. Lawmakers should also restore the public oversight the law removed, since it makes the data confidential and exempt from the California Public Records Act³. The Supreme Court has described parents' care, custody and control as "perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests," in Troxel v. Granville⁴. The family is prior to the state, and no agency's data policy outranks it.

Sources

1. Governor Newsom signs legislation protecting the LGBTQ community, pushing back on attacks by the Trump administration | Governor of California
2. California Family Council • 1121 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 • (866) 866-7993 • CaliforniaFamily.org
3. SB 1114: Data collection: sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status: disclosure. | Digital Democracy
4. Justia Supreme Court opinions