In early October, biological girls on a Vermont high school volleyball team were banned from their own locker room for objecting to changing in front of a transgender teammate who is a biological male.A couple of weeks later, the father of one of the girls was suspended from his job as a middle school coach for defending his daughter on social media and ‘misgendering’ the trans student.Then Alliance Defending Freedom (ADL) got involved and threatened a First Amendment lawsuit and now the school is backing down.The New American reports:
Vermont High School Backs Down Over “Transgender” Incident After ADF Files a First Amendment LawsuitLawyers representing Randolph Union High School (RUHS) in Randolph, Vermont, persuaded school officials to drop their threats of punishment upon receiving a 124-page lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).At issue: the school’s determination to force its transgender policies upon a 14-year-old girl and her father. For daring to question those policies — i.e., complaining when a male who declared himself to be a female entered the girls’ locker room to observe them undressing — RUHS officials demanded that the student, Blake Allen, “take part in a restorative circle … to help her understand the rights of [transgender] students to access public accommodation … in a manner consistent with their [self-proclaimed] gender identity.”School officials also demanded that her father, Travis Allen, apologize for a Facebook post challenging the mother of the transgender male/female over the veracity of a Facebook post she made defending her transgender male/female son/daughter.ADF reviewed the incident:
Travis Allen and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Blake, were punished for expressing their views on a matter of profound public concern: whether a teenage male who identifies as female should be permitted to change in a girls’ locker room regardless of the discomfort experienced by girls in that room.In objecting to a male being in the room while the girls are changing, Travis and Blake each made comments underscoring that the trans-identifying student is in fact a male, including by using male pronouns.Indeed, their view of the student’s maleness was foundational to their opinions on appropriate use of the locker room.Yet, their remarks were too much for Defendants’ transgender orthodoxy — Travis was deemed to have “misgendered” the student, while Blake was found guilty of “harassment” and “bullying” — so Defendants disciplined both of them.
You can read the full complaint here.
In case you missed it, the Daily Signal went to Vermont and spoke to the girls on the volleyball team in October. Watch below:
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