HR 111

CFC Opposes

Authors: CA Assemblyman Rick Zbur , CA Assemblywoman Sade Elhawary , CA Assemblyman Corey Jackson , CA Assemblyman Alex Lee , CA Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez , CA Assemblyman Jose Solache , CA Assemblyman Chris Ward

Latest Action: Read. Adopted. (Page 5131.).

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Transgenderism

May 15, 2026

The Honorable Blanca Pacheco, Chair
Assembly Committee on Rules
1021 O Street, Suite 7150
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Chair Pacheco:

On behalf of tens of thousands of constituents, allied organizations, and more than 2,000 churches across California, the California Family Council strongly opposes HR 111.

HR 111 designates May 17, 2026, as International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) and calls on all Californians to "stand against hate" and "support LGBTQ+ communities." While framed in the language of inclusion, this resolution embeds contested ideological claims into the official legislative record and treats sincere religious conviction as a form of social harm. Non-binding today, this language becomes the foundation cited by binding legislation tomorrow.

The Resolution Equates Religious Conviction with Bigotry

HR 111 characterizes recent legislative efforts to protect children from sterilizing hormone therapies and sex-change procedures as "targeting LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly transgender youth, threatening hard-won civil rights."¹ This framing makes no distinction between genuine animus and principled, good-faith disagreement rooted in medical evidence or religious belief. Millions of Californians, including adherents of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, hold historic convictions about biological sex and marriage that this resolution effectively labels as hatred. A state committed to genuine pluralism should not use official resolutions to stigmatize the sincere moral convictions of a substantial portion of its own citizenry.

It Undermines Evidence-Based Child Safeguarding

The resolution's finding directly conflicts with the weight of emerging medical consensus. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a comprehensive review in 2025 documenting serious harms associated with pediatric gender interventions, including sterilizing hormone therapies and surgical procedures.² European nations including Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have restricted or reversed these interventions following systematic evidence reviews. To characterize legislative efforts aligned with this medical evidence as attacks on civil rights is not compassion; it is ideological advocacy dressed as science.

Non-Binding Resolutions Have Real Consequences

Sacramento has a well-documented pattern of using ceremonial resolutions to establish a rhetorical baseline that subsequent binding legislation builds upon. Assembly Bill 2943 (Low, 2018) sought to classify counseling services offering a traditional perspective on sexuality as consumer fraud, drawing directly on the ideological framework that resolutions like HR 111 normalize. Senate Bill 219 (Wiener, 2017) imposed criminal penalties for failing to use preferred pronouns in long-term care facilities.³ Assembly Bill 957 (Wilson, 2023) would have required family courts to weigh a parent's gender ideology affirmation in custody determinations. Each of these bills followed a trail of legislative findings that were first tested in non-binding resolutions. HR 111 adds another layer to that foundation.

The resolution passed the Assembly Rules Committee on May 11, 2026, by a vote of 6 to 0, with no support or opposition registered on file.¹ This is precisely how Sacramento advances contested ideology without accountability. When no organization files opposition, the Legislature constructs a false consensus that all Californians endorse this framework. California Family Council is filing this opposition to ensure the record reflects otherwise.

Resolutions that formally declare one side of a contested cultural debate to be "hate" create a chilling effect on First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights. When official state documents treat orthodox religious conviction as functionally equivalent to irrational bigotry, that characterization influences public discourse, agency rulemaking, and ultimately judicial interpretation of religious liberty claims. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that government may not discriminate against religious viewpoints in public forums; embedding anti-religious framing in legislative findings pushes against that boundary incrementally but meaningfully.

California should be a state where every resident is treated with dignity, where children are protected from irreversible medical harm, and where people of faith are not labeled as practitioners of hate by their own Legislature. HR 111 advances none of those goals. It advances an ideological agenda that divides Californians and lays groundwork for future restrictions on parental authority, counseling freedom, and religious liberty.

For these reasons, California Family Council respectfully opposes HR 111.

Respectfully,

Greg Burt
Vice President
California Family Council

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