The parents of an 11-year-old female student have complained to a Colorado school district after their daughter was forced to share a bed with a biological male, transgender student.
After the male student revealed that he identified as a girl, the couple’s daughter went into the bathroom to call her mother and inform her of the situation.
Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Jefferson County Public Schools, alleging the school district’s policy of “hiding information from parents and lying to students is unconstitutional.”
The letter, obtained by the Daily Signal, asked the school district to explain “whether JCPS will continue this practice of intentionally withholding information about rooming accommodations from parents like the Waileses, who object to their children rooming with a student of the opposite sex, regardless of the other student’s gender identity.”
“This practice renders it impossible for these parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, upbringing, and participation in school-sponsored programs,” the letter notes.
The transgender student, referred to as K.E.M. in the letter, was to be in “‘stealth mode,’ meaning students on the trip would not know” about a peer’s transgender status.
Chaperones for the trip allowed D.W., the student initially forced to share a bed with K.E.M., to move to another bed, although she was still in the same room.
The chaperones then “decided to lie to D.W.’s roommates, and instruct D.W. to do the same, telling D.W. to say she needed to switch beds to be closer to the air conditioner,” the letter reads.
After D.W. emphasized that she was still uncomfortable, the chaperones “agreed to move K.E.M. and one other girl to a different room but again lied about why.”
“Throughout the entire evening, K.E.M’s privacy and feelings were always the primary concern of JCPS employees,” the letter noted, adding, “After JCPS disregarded D.W.’s privacy and the Waileses’ parental rights, JCPS then silenced DW, thus infringing on her freedom of speech, when a JCPS teacher told the three girls that they were not allowed to tell anyone that [he] was transgender, even though [he] voluntarily chose to share this information.”
“Parents, not the government, have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and that includes making informed decisions to protect their child’s privacy,” ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, Director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, said in a statement. “Schools should never hide information from parents, yet that’s exactly what JCPS officials did here. And that put the Waileses’ 11-year-old daughter in a very challenging situation where she had to choose between sleeping in the same bed with a biological boy and advocating for her privacy in front of her teachers and peers. Understandably, the Wailes family is asking JCPS to cease its practice of intentionally withholding information about rooming accommodations from parents. Every parent should have the information needed to make the best decision for their children.”
