Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law requiring student IDs to include a radical transgender advocacy group’s LGBTQ youth hotline — and then attacked MAGA in a response to Daily Caller News Foundation defending the bill.
California law already required public and private schools to print a general suicide prevention hotline on all student IDs. However, under AB 727, which was signed into law by Newsom on Friday, schools must now include the number for the Trevor Project, which has been criticized for connecting minors with trans activists for so-called “gender affirming” counseling. The mandate applies to public school students as young as middle school.
The move comes just months after the Trump administration terminated a federal suicide hotline for so-called LGBTQ youth that subcontracted to the Trevor Project and other organizations.
The Trump Administration’s removal of LGBTQ suicide prevention programs this summer was a disgrace.
I just signed legislation requiring student ID cards in public middle schools, high schools, and colleges to include the @TrevorProject’s crisis and suicide prevention hotline. pic.twitter.com/s4zO9gSuf6
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) October 10, 2025
Parents Defending Education has raised concerns that the Trevor Project’s online chat allows children to discuss gender and sexuality with unrelated adults. The website includes a “quick exit” feature that instantly closes the window and clears browser history to hide conversations from parents.
The Trevor Project also hosts TrevorSpace, a chatroom advertised for users aged 13 to 24. While the site claims to be moderated, it has been shown to host sexually explicit discussions and troubling advice for vulnerable minors.
The organization also opposes parental notification policies for name or pronoun changes at school, supports allowing men in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, and promotes puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as “medically necessary” for transgender-identifying youth.
Democrat Assemblyman Mark González, who introduced the bill, indicated it was brought forward as a direct response to the Trump administration’s move.
“When Donald Trump and the federal government turn their backs on LGBTQ+ youth, California steps up,” González said in a statement. “With the signing of AB 727, we’re sending a clear message: our LGBTQ+ youth are seen, valued, and never alone. AB 727 is not just a piece of legislation; it is a lifeline for our queer youth.”
Earlier this year, Newsom appeared to moderate his stances on transgender youth, including by calling men competing in women’s sports “deeply unfair,” and expressing hesitancy about medically transitioning children. Since then, however, California’s Department of Education has refused to comply with the Trump administration’s demand to bar men from women’s sports and spaces.
“If MAGA is more upset about a crisis hotline saving LGBTQ kids than about those kids dying by suicide, I think we’ve found the real problem — and it’s not the bill,” a spokesperson for Newsom told the Daily Caller News Foundation in defense of the law.
Neither González nor the Trevor Project responded to the DCNF
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