Mom Sues Maine School for Aiding in Daughter’s Gender Change Without Her Knowledge

“I deserve to know what’s happening to my child — the secrecy needs to stop,” the mother said.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Mom Amber Lavigne has filed a lawsuit against Great Salt Bay Community School officials for aiding in the gender transition of her 13-year-old daughter.
  • Samuel Roy, a social worker at the school in Damariscotta, Maine, provided Lavigne’s daughter with a chest binder during a counseling session.
  • The lawsuit looks to overturn the school’s policy of hiding gender transitions from parents and demands compensation for damages wrought by removing the young student from the school.
  • Lavigne asserts her constitutional rights were violated.
  • “The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held over the past century that one of the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment is the right of parents to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions, etc., of their children—a right the Court has characterized as fundamental,” the lawsuit states.
  • According to the school, no constitutional violations occurred as the student has a “right to privacy regardless of age,” the court document reads.
FROM THE LAWSUIT:
  • The lawsuit asserts that by concealing information relating to the daughter’s chest binder and use of gender pronouns that do not associate with her biological sex, Lavigne was deprived “of the capacity to meaningfully make decisions regarding the care and upbringing of A.B.”
  • Lavigne’s daughter is referred to as “A.B.” in the lawsuit.
  • “This policy, pattern, and practice also deprived Plaintiff of the capacity to exercise meaningful choice respecting A.B.’s education, because such concealment deprived Plaintiff of information necessary to make an informed decision respecting which school is best suited to her family’s needs,” the case reads.
  • As part of the “Requests for Relief,” the plaintiff requested an unspecified amount for the “actual damages” that were “incurred by the Plaintiff as a result of removing A.B from Great Salt Bay Community School.”
  • The case also contains a copy of the Great Salt Bay Community School’s transgender student guidelines, one stipulating that the school “is not required to use a student’s legal name or gender on school records or other documents, the school should use the name and gender identified in the student’s plan.”
  • School policy states transgender students will also be allowed to be referred to by their chosen pronouns, use restrooms according to their chosen gender, and “be permitted to use the locker room assigned to the gender which the student consistently asserts at school.”
BACKGROUND:
  • Parents have expressed outrage across the nation as school systems have implemented policies allowing officials to hide students’ pronouns and gender transition measures from their guardians.
  • In June 2022, six parents and teachers sued Virginia’s Harrisonburg City Public Schools over a policy forbidding educators from sharing a student’s desired pronouns with his or her parents.
  • The school policy came as the Virginia Department of Education mandated “anti-discrimination” motions to support trans students.

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