Mother Sues School for Refusing to Allow 7th Grade Trans Daughter to Play Boys' Soccer

A girl who is living as a boy with the support of her mother is at the center of a lawsuit against the Martinsville school in Indiana.

The suit claims that the child is being mistreated because she is not allowed to use the boys’ restrooms and play on the boys soccer team.

The mother of the girl, who is referred to the suit as A.C. because she is a minor, is a seventh-grader at John R. Wooden Middle School and is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. 

The student also claims she has been “misgendered” — or called a girl instead of by her male “gender identity,” according to an Indianapolis Star report quoting the lawsuit by saying that the school was “unfairly denying a transgender student access to the boys’ bathroom, not letting him participate in boys’ sports and refusing to call him by male pronouns.”

“He feels that he is being singled out and that he is not accepted for who he is,” the complaint says.

The Star reported on similar cases in other states that have ruled in favor of the minors who want to live as their opposite sex.

“This seems to be an area where the law is crystal clear but schools are refusing to follow the law,” Kenneth Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said in the Star report.

Ironically, the lawsuit filed in federal court last week is claiming the federal Title IX statute protects the child from discrimination based on sex — in this case, discrimination against someone not because of biological sex but for “gender identity.”

The Star reported on the girl’s plight:

According to court documents, the student is a patient at the Gender Health Program at Riley at IU Health in Indianapolis where he is receiving care and treatment for gender dysphoria. He’s on medication to prevent him from having periods and, when medically appropriate, he will start masculinizing hormones.

The student has been presenting as a boy since the fifth grade. His mother has petitioned a Morgan County state court for a legal name and gender marker change so that his birth certificate can be amended to reflect his male gender and the name he uses. It’s still pending, according to court documents.

The suit is requesting that the court require the school to treat A.C. as “a boy in all respects, allowing him to use male restrooms and other facilities,” to refer to him as male, with matching pronouns and let him play on the boys’ soccer team next fall.

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