Out California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) has introduced a bill to protect trans people’s privacy in preparation for the incoming Trump administration. Donald Trump’s ire toward trans people and his planned assault on their rights “will only embolden abusive right-wing extremists,” Wiener said.

S.B. 59, also called the Transgender Privacy Act, would establish an automatic process to seal all court records regarding someone’s gender transition in the state, including retroactively sealing those that already exist. It would also ensure all gender transition records that refer to the person by their dead name or sex assigned at birth would be sealed.

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A similar law applying only to youth was passed in 2023. Wiener’s bill specifically applies to those over 18.

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“The incoming Trump administration and Republican congressional leadership have made clear that targeting and erasing trans people is among their highest policy priorities, and California must have our trans community members’ backs,” Wiener said in a statement. “Making this personal identifying information public after someone transitions, including a person’s dead name, as well as the basic fact that they’re trans or nonbinary, pointlessly exposes trans and nonbinary Californians to harassment and potential violence.”

If passed, California would join Washington, Oregon, and New York in having some form of privacy laws to protect trans people from being forcibly outed by state records.

“When I learned I was unable to change my name in California without being forcibly outed online and exposed to harassment I was appalled,” said Hazel Williams, a trans activist who worked on the legislation with Wiener, according to the Bay Area Reporter. “I’m proud to help rally community members and advocacy organizations to fix this. There are 220,000 transgender and nonbinary adults in California. All of us deserve privacy and safety and this legislation is a vital step in that direction.”

The legislation follows a decision last year by Fresno’s 5th District Court of Appeal that granted a trans woman in the state the right to seal her transition-related records after she was outed on social media, harassed by anonymous users, and forced to close all her accounts. While the decision set a precedent for judges to grant requests to seal transition records, it does not require them to do so the way Wiener’s bill would.

“As Trump and his cronies continue their cynical incitements of violence against transgender people, it’s critical that we fight back with progressive protections at the state level,” Syd Simpson, co-chair of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ_ Democratic Club’s Transgender Caucus, told the Bay Area Reporter.

“It’s really scary to know that there are people out there who want to hurt you and that your personal information is just sitting there for them to exploit. The right to privacy and the right to be safe are precious to our community, and we’ve got to fight for them.”

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