A Wisconsin court on Monday blocked a local school district policy that allows students to transition to another gender identity at school without parental notice or consent.
State Judge Frank D. Remington issued an injunction blocking a policy by the Madison Metropolitan School District that allows school officials to conceal information about a child’s gender identity from parents.
In essence, the policy lets students live one way at school and another way at home – and it gives teachers permission to deceive parents.
The policy is part of the district’s recently approved “Guidance & Policies to Support Transgender, Non-binary & Gender-Expansive Students.”
Remington’s injunction prevents the district from “applying or enforcing any policy, guideline, or practice” that “allows or requires District staff to conceal information or to answer untruthfully in response to any question that parents ask about their child at school, including information about the name and pronouns being used to address their child at school.”
The legal group Alliance Defending Freedom sued the district on behalf of multiple parents.
The district’s official policy allows children of any age “to socially transition to a different gender identity at school by selecting a new ‘affirmed name and pronouns’ to be used at school ‘regardless of parent/guardian permission,’” according to the lawsuit.
The policy also prohibits teachers and other staff from “reveal[ing] a student’s gender identity” – such as the student’s new name and pronouns – “to … parents or guardians … unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure,” the suit says. The policy even gives teachers permission to use “the student’s affirmed name and pronouns in the school setting, and their legal name and pronouns with family.”
ADF senior counsel Roger Brooks applauded the judge’s ruling.
“It should go without saying that school district staff should be honest with parents, especially when it comes to critical matters concerning their children, but we are pleased that the court has issued an order now requiring it,” Brooks said. “As this case moves forward, we will continue to argue for our clients’ legitimate concern over the Madison Metropolitan School District’s policy of deceiving parents and excluding them from profound decisions involving the wellbeing of their own children.”
According to the lawsuit, the school district has promoted transgenderism several ways, including by recommending the pro-transgenderism book I Am Jazz. It also distributed a coloring book to classes, including to kindergarteners, that contained a page saying, “Everyone has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else, and no one else gets to choose for them.”
Photo courtesy: Pixabay
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
