Courtney Joslin, a UC Davis law professor, said the bar for criminal prosecution would be extremely high.
"The bill is very, very clear that what is prohibited is the willful engagement and repeated engagement in discriminatory conduct against LGBT seniors. So, if someone makes a mistake or doesn’t know what a person’s gender identity is and uses the incorrect pronoun that is not a violation of the statute," Joslin said.
Willful and repeated violations alone wouldn’t lead to criminal prosecution, Joslin added. They would likely be punished with a fine.
Criminal charges would only follow, she said, if the violation reached a level that was shown to cause the risk of death or serious physical harm, in accordance with state’s existing penalty structure for health and safety code violations at long-term care centers.
Wiener has said purposefully using the wrong pronoun would be treated the same way as someone who violates a center’s smoking ban. It would be considered a minor violation but "no one is going to jail for that."