California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed into law a measure that aims to strengthen protections for transgender youths and their families.
Senate Bill 107 contains an array of safeguards for families who arrive in California from states where their children have been denied gender-affirming health care.
It bans courts from enforcing subpoenas from other states regarding minors seeking that care. It prohibits health care providers from releasing medical information. And it clarifies that California courts have jurisdiction over any child custody cases arising from parents taking their children to the state for care.
But a Sept. 29 Facebook post went further to suggest the law says something else:
"Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 107 into law. In the state of California, your child can now be taken from your custody if you do not affirm gender-reassignment surgery."
The post, shared by the American Council, is a screenshot of a tweet by the group’s founder, Tanner DiBella. The American Council describes itself as an organization dedicated to increasing voter turnout among Christian evangelicals.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
DiBella told PolitiFact the California Legislative Counsel’s summary of the law backs up his reasoning. He pointed specifically to a passage of the summary at the top of bill’s text that reads, "The bill would authorize a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care."
But experts we spoke to said that doesn’t mean the state would take custody of the child — it clarifies that California courts would assume jurisdiction of the legal matter. Current law allows California courts to decline jurisdiction in multistate custody matters in certain circumstances.
Courtney Joslin, a Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said the law has nothing to do with who gets custody of a child during a dispute and makes no mention of allowing the court to take custody.
"It’s just describing which courts have jurisdiction in those multi-state (custody disputes)," she said. "There’s no possibility that this bill could be interpreted to do what this person is claiming."
Asaf Orr, a senior staff attorney and Transgender Youth Project director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the bill doesn’t give California carte blanche to remove a child from a parent’s custody.