Judge strikes down rule requiring traffic cops to disclose their pronouns in data reporting

A judge blocked a recent regulation requiring police to disclose their own gender identity when they report traffic stop data.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Christopher E. Krueger issued a temporary restraining order on Tuesday preventing the state from enforcing recent regulations related to the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015. Passed that year as AB 953, a nearly decade old law requires officers and the agencies they work for to report data to the state on the "perceived demographic and other detailed data regarding pedestrian and traffic stops."

Krueger wrote that the plaintiffs had no "plain, speedy or adequate remedy" short of a temporary injunction. He scheduled a hearing for March 19.

Attorney General Rob Bonta's office adopted a new regulation, effective Jan. 1, that requires officers to report this information in a form that requires them to indicate their own gender from among five choices covering man/woman, cisgender/transgender, or non-binary.

Several organizations representing law enforcement groups sued. They claimed the regulation did not comply with the state's Administrative Procedures Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and also violated their members' constitutional right to privacy. The named plaintiff in the case is Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents about 80,000 law enforcement staff and 950 organizations across the state. Marvel v. State of California, 24CV000737 (Sac. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 16, 2024).

"All Californians are guaranteed the constitutionally protected right to privacy in their sensitive, personal information," wrote David E. Mastagni of Mastagni Holstedt, APC and Timothy K Talbot of Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, PC in the complaint. "Yet, the Department of Justice has promulgated a new regulation to the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 requiring Peace Officers to disclose their gender identity to their employers as a condition of their employment. This regulation not only violates employees' civil rights, but also places employers in the untenable position of choosing between incompatible laws."

Bonta's office did not respond to an email seeking comment on the ruling. In an opposition motion filed Jan. 22, Deputy Attorney General Iram Hasan argued the plaintiffs engaged in "extreme delay" by not filing their case for two and a half years after the regulation was first proposed. Hasan's brief also argued "the Department implemented protections to ensure the anonymity of officers."

"PORAC remains committed to protecting the rights of all our members to live as they wish, identify as they see fit, and to share that identity on their own terms," said Marvel in a news release. "It is not fair or right to put officers in the untenable position of disclosing their gender identity before they are ready to do so and as a condition of employment."

The plaintiffs filed their case days after Bonta's office warned school districts across California they would face consequences for "forced outing policies" that required schools to tell parents if a student came out as trans.