California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have pushed parents to “affirm” the gender identities of trans children — bowing to statewide pressure from parents and high-powered critics such as Elon Musk, who called it “utter madness.”

“I share a deep commitment to advancing the rights of transgender Californians, an effort that has guided my decisions through many decades in public office,” the lefty governor wrote in a message issued late Friday amid a flurry of other vetoes.

But the law, he said, would have created a new legal standard “in prescriptive terms that single out one characteristic,” the Sacramento Bee reported.

The measure, Assembly Bill 957, would have told judges to weigh parents’ support of their child’s “gender identity or gender expression” when determining custody or setting visitation rights — a change that Musk, the estranged father of a trans child, decried as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“What it would actually mean is that if you disagree with the other parent about sterilizing your child, you lose custody,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, when the bill passed the legislature two weeks ago. “Utter madness!”

But state senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, called Newsom’s rejection “a tragedy for trans kids here & around the country.”

“These kids are living in fear, with right wing politicians working to out them, deny them health care, ban them from sports & restrooms & erase their humanity,” Wiener wrote.

Wiener has pushed a flurry of pro-trans laws in California — including the “Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act,” which critics say has enabled dangerous trans women convicts to be held in female-only prisons.