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   From: slothe@netcom.com   
      
   The California Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to a   
   state law that protects the rights of gay and transgender people in   
   nursing homes and forbids employees of those sites from using the wrong   
   pronouns to address a resident or coworker.   
      
   The ruling, handed down today, holds that violations of the LGBT Long-Term   
   Care Residents’ Bill of Rights are not protected by the First Amendment   
   because they relate to codes of conduct in what is effectively both a   
   workplace and a home.   
      
   “The pronouns provision constitutes a regulation of discriminatory conduct   
   that incidentally affects speech,” the court ruled.   
      
   The opinion reversed an appeals court ruling that held provisions in the   
   2017 law relating to patient pronouns and names could impede an employee’s   
   freedom of speech. Five justices signed onto the main opinion; two signed   
   onto a concurrence. There were no dissents.   
      
   “All individuals deserve to live free from harmful, disrespectful rhetoric   
   that attacks their sense of self, especially when receiving care necessary   
   for their continued well-being,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a   
   written statement commending the ruling. “State law prohibits   
   discrimination and harassment in the workplace. I am glad that the   
   California Supreme Court agrees with us on the importance of these   
   protections and has affirmed their constitutionality.”   
      
   The group challenging the law, Taking Offense, asserted in its lawsuit   
   that the provision mandating long-term care facilities use people’s chosen   
   pronouns amounts to “criminalizing and compelling speech content.”   
      
   Taking Offense described itself in court documents as a group opposing   
   efforts “to coerce society to accept transgender fiction that a person can   
   be whatever sex/gender s/he thinks s/he is, or chooses to be.”   
      
   The court ruled that the LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights   
   “will be violated when willful and repeated misgendering has occurred in   
   the presence of a resident, the resident hears or sees the misgendering,   
   and the resident is harmed because the resident perceives that conduct to   
   be abusive.”   
      
   The LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights is enforced by a section   
   of California’s Health and Safety Code. Penalties can range from civil   
   fines to criminal misdemeanor prosecutions — the potential for criminal   
   penalties was a major element of Taking Offense’s argument. The court’s   
   decision noted that other protections for long-term care facility   
   residents have long carried both civil and criminal penalties.   
      
   “It seems apparent that the Legislature does not intend for such criminal   
   penalties to be imposed except as a last resort, in the most egregious   
   circumstances,” wrote the decision’s author, California Supreme Court   
   Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero.   
      
   The opinion made comparisons to other free speech decisions with similar   
   elements, such as the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the   
   the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston could not   
   force St. Patrick’s Day parade organizers to include them.   
      
   “By contrast, the present case does not involve any analogous creative   
   product or expressive association,” Guerrero wrote, concluding that the   
   California law is instead regulating people’s conduct.   
      
   https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/11/lgbt-rights-long-term-care/   
      
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