A federal judge ruled against a first-grade teacher in Pennsylvania who failed to provide notice of transgender content taught in the classroom.
During the classroom presentation, the teacher told the young students that “parents make a guess about their children’s – when children are born, parents make a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl. Sometimes parents are wrong,” the decision’s introduction read.
The students were left feeling confused, the decision says.
While some of the parents objected to the content, the principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent “backed the teacher’s conduct, despite permitting notice and opt out rights for numerous other religious and secular topics,” the document said.
The judge ruled in favor of the three mothers behind the lawsuit.
“A teacher instructing first-graders and reading books to show that their parents’ beliefs about their children’s gender identity may be wrong directly repudiates parental authority. Williams’ conduct struck at the heart of Plaintiffs’ own families and their relationship with their own young children,” the court wrote.
“The students’ confusion in this case illustrates how difficult it is for a first-grader when a teacher’s instruction conflicts with their Parents’ religious and moral beliefs,” the decision added. “The heart of parental authority on matters of the greatest importance within their own family is undermined when a teacher tells first-graders their parents may be wrong about whether the student is a boy or a girl.”
The court noted that it is “constitutionally impermissible” for schools to allow teachers to teach elementary-aged students transgenderism, a “noncurricular topic,” without providing parents notice and the ability opt out.
