Court Says School Can Secretly “Social-Transition” 12-Year-Old Student To Opposite Sex
Another federal court has ruled against a parent’s right to be notified when their child “socially transitions” to the opposite sex in school. Taking its cues from Foote v. Ludlow, a similar First Circuit case we covered here, the Northern District Court of New York held the school’s non-disclosure policy was necessary to promote a “safe” learning environment for all of its students.
New York mother Jennifer Vitsaxaki sued the Skaneateles Central School District last year, alleging school staff had treated her 12-year-old daughter “Jane” as a boy, referring to her with a new masculine name and new third-person pronouns—all without her parents’ knowledge or consent. We covered the mother’s lawsuit in detail here.
Like virtually every “trans” identifying student in the parental notification cases we’ve covered, Jane was an emotionally vulnerable child. Newly arrived from her native Greece, Jane was having a hard time adjusting to her new life. She was anxious and depressed when she told her new school she wanted to use a new male name and pronouns, the lawsuit says.
Shortly after meeting with her, according to the court filings, the all-too-willing school counselor told Jane’s teachers and staff they should call Jane by her new masculine name and use the ambiguous “they” and “them” third-person pronouns instead of “she” and “her.”
Jane’s parents, however, were not told about these actions. The school’s gender identity policy directed staff to deceive them by using Jane’s given name and pronouns when talking to her mother, while using her new masculine set at school. Even the school yearbook, the court noted, was to use Jane’s legal name rather than her preferred masculine one.
That’s because, under the school’s gender identity policy, the student calls the shots: The “district permits students to determine when, how, and if to notify their parents of their decision to elect a chosen name and/or pronouns at school.”
In her lawsuit, Vitsaxaki claimed that policy violated her constitutional rights, including both her religious and parental rights to direct her daughters’ upbringing, education, and healthcare—all of which were rejected by Judge David Hurd last week.
The school’s policy furthered its legitimate interest in promoting a “safe” learning environment for its students, he ruled, and therefore did not violate her religious rights.
Nor did it infringe the mother’s parental rights: The Skaneateles policy was more “like a civility code that extends the kind of decency students should expect at school: such as being called the name they ask to be called,” Judge Hurd wrote.
And here again, as in Foote v. Ludlow, the court grossly mischaracterizes the true nature of “social transitioning.” The cases we’ve covered all make clear: secret social transitioning—starting with using students’ preferred names and pronouns—puts the child on the path to permanent, life-altering medical transitioning. It’s not just a matter of etiquette.
But the school wasn’t required to tell the mother it was applying its “civility code” to sex-transition her daugher, because the mother had no right to that information, the court concluded. “Simply put,” if she didn’t like it, “she remained free to exercise her parent rights at home” —“whether through direct conversations, private educational institutions, religious programming, homeschooling, or other influential tools,” the court held.
As a matter of fact—and on the bright side—that’s exactly what Mrs. Vitsaxaki she did. According to the court filings, she took Jane out of public school and put her in private school, where she has observed noticeable improvement in her daughter’s overall mental health—and where Jane no longer asks to called by a different name and pronouns.
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