DeSantis dings Newsom for signing gender identity law

MILWAUKEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) swiped at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention after his California counterpart put his signature on a bill prohibiting teachers from being required to advise parents if their child has changed their gender identity.

“Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. I’d assumed that they had already done that,” DeSantis told a Moms for Liberty town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday. “I did this debate with him last fall, and he was trying to say that California respects parents’ rights. And I said that’s interesting because you have a policy where minor children from other states are allowed to travel to California behind their parents’ back and get gender transition hormones and surgery. How the heck is that respecting those parents’ rights?”

“Why are they doing this? Because they view, ultimately, the state and the state-imposed ideology to be supreme, and so if you as a parent want to raise your kids in a way that departs from that state-mandated ideology, they’re going to claw back your rights and your privileges to do so,” he said.

Elon Musk announced an hour before DeSantis sat down onstage for a panel discussion alongside Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) that he was relocating the headquarters of SpaceX and X from California to Texas in protest of the new law. Musk reportedly has a transgender child from whom he is estranged.

“This is the final straw,” Musk wrote on X. “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” he added.

X will move to Austin, Texas.

DeSantis and Newsom’s debate during the 2024 Republican primary was considered a possible preview of the 2028 election cycle.

Newsom signed the bill on Monday after seven Californian school boards started requiring teachers to inform parents if their child decides to use another name or pronoun.

A Newsom spokesman pointed the Washington Examiner to a tweet from the governor when asked for a response.

“You bent the knee,” Newsom wrote on social media.