Federal Courts Allowing Secret Social Transitioning in Schools, Rejecting Parents’ Rights

Get your kids our of public schools. Do not sacrifice your children to this evil. Transgender ideology is by now “baked into” the country’s educational associations. Leftist courts will not save you. American justice is a thing of the past.

Federal Courts Allowing Secret Social Transitioning in Schools, Rebuff Parents’ Rights

Public schools are encouraging students to socially transition behind their parents’ backs, claiming secrecy is necessary to keep kids “safe”—from their parents.

ADVERTISEMENT

Posted by Jane Coleman Tuesday, July 18, 2023:

Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri’s 11-year-old daughter was a sixth-grade student at the Baird Middle School in Ludlow, MA, during the 2020-2021 school year when her parents say they learned she identified as “genderqueer.”

It was news to the parents, but not to the school.

They sued the school for keeping that news from them. To read through their  federal complaint, which we first covered here, it should not have come as a surprise to anyone.

The Ludlow school staff played an active role  in socially transitioning students to other genders, the parents allege. [Complaint par. 58] The chief instigator was the former school librarian: She advertised her own “nonbinary” status to the school community and told students not to refer to one another as “boys” and “girls.” She also met one-on-one with both their son and daughter, the parents say in the complaint, “on multiple occasions to discuss alternative genders, affirm the children’s choices of alternative names, and provide encouragement for their assertion of a transgender identity”—all without their knowledge or consent. [Complaint, par. 90]

ADVERTISEMENT

In fact, the parents might never have found out about their daughter if it weren’t for one brave teacher who they claim forwarded  them the email she sent to school staff [Complaint, par. 60]:

Hello everyone, If you are reading this you are either my teacher or guidance counselor. I have an announcement to make and I trust you guys with this information. I am genderqueer. Basically, it means I use any pronouns (other than it/its). This also means I have a name change. My new name will be R****. Please call me by that name. If you deadname me or use any pronouns I am not comfortable with I will politely tell you. I am telling you this because I feel like I can trust you. A list of pronouns you can use are: she/her he/him they/them fae/faerae/aer ve/ver xe/xem ze/zir. I have added a link so you can look at how to say them. Please only use the ones I have listed and not the other ones. I do not like them. Thank you. R*** Foote. [Complaint, par. 56]

The teacher was later fired, the parents allege, for her “inappropriate contact with the parents,” i.e., for sharing the student’s email with her own parents. [Complaint, par. 71]

That is because under the alleged Ludlow public school policy, when a student asks to be called by a new name and pronouns of another gender, staff members have to keep it a secret from the parents, unless they have the student’s consent.

From the Complaint, par. 35:

35. Plaintiffs are informed and believe and based thereon allege that from July 2021 to the present Defendant Nemeth, as Interim Superintendent of Ludlow Public Schools, has implemented the Protocol throughout Ludlow Public Schools and directed administrators, teachers, counselors and other staff in all district schools adhere to the Protocol by not notifying parents regarding their child’s gender nonconformity or transgender status unless the child had consented to his or her parents being notified.

It must get confusing for teachers, having to keep straight which set of names and pronouns to use when speaking to the parents and which set to use when speaking to their child in school:

ADVERTISEMENT

From the Complaint, par. 103:

103. Defendant School Committee has condoned and facilitated the continued implementation of the Protocol, and in particular the intentional and blatant disregard for parental rights reflected in concealing information from parents regarding their children’s gender non-conformity or transgender identification and in actively deceiving parents by directing staff to use children’s given names and pronouns when speaking with parents but using the child’s asserted preference for alternative names and pronouns at all other times.

But those are the rules.

And anyone who objects to them, the former Ludlow superintendent later said at a school committee meeting, is just showing their “thinly veiled intolerance” masked as “parental rights,” the court found this past December. In defense of the school policy, he said that for “some students who are transgender or gender nonconforming, school is the only safe place to express who they are.” In other words, the policy was there to protect the students—from their parents.

In Court, Keeping Kids “Safe” Overrides Parents’ Rights

When Foote and Silvestri challenged that policy in federal court last year, they claimed that withholding information about their children’s gender identity violated their constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children and make medical and mental-health care decisions for them, as well as their right to family privacy.

Keep reading….