California Teachers Sue School District Over Transgender Policy Allegedly Forcing Them to Lie to Parents

Teachers from a California middle school are taking legal action against their school district over policies that force them to hide the transgender status of young students from parents. The lawsuit comes after President Joe Biden’s recent remarks in support of the nation’s teacher of the year, which angered parents by suggesting that the government knows best when it comes to raising children.

The Legal Complaint

The legal complaint (pdf) in the new case, Mirabelli v. Olson, was filed on April 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The teachers involved in the lawsuit are devout Christians.

The Defendants

The defendants are officials with the Escondido Union School District (EUSD), which is in San Diego County, and officials with the California State Board of Education.

The Policies

The lawsuit was prompted by the K-8 school district’s recent policies affecting transgender or gender-diverse students. The policies require teachers to assist in a student’s transgender “social transition” by accepting a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender-diverse identity and using during school hours any pronouns or a gender-specific name requested by a student.

• Teachers must accept a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender-diverse identity
• Teachers must use any pronouns or gender-specific name requested by a student
• Teachers must revert to biological pronouns and legal names when speaking with parents
• Teachers must cover up information about a child’s purported gender identity from the child’s parents

According to the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit public interest law firm that filed the lawsuit, “All of this is to be done without parent or guardian agreement or knowledge.”

The Complaint

“Schools routinely send notes home to parents about trivial matters, like missing homework, so it is unfathomable that Escondido Union School District has a policy that forces teachers to withhold from parents some of the most fundamental and basic information about their children,” said Paul Jonna, Thomas More Society special counsel and a partner at LiMandri and Jonna.

EUSD requires all elementary and middle school teachers to “unhesitatingly accept a child’s assertion of a transgender or gender diverse identity, and … [to] ‘begin to treat the student immediately’ according to their asserted gender identity,” according to the legal complaint.

“There is absolutely no room for discussion, polite disagreement, or even questioning whether the child is sincere or acting on a whim,” the complaint continues. “Once a child’s social transitioning has begun, EUSD elementary and middle school teachers must ensure that parents do not find out.”

“EUSD’s policies state that ‘revealing a student’s transgender status to individuals who do not have a legitimate need for the information, without the student’s consent’ is prohibited, and ‘parents or caretakers’ are, according to EUSD, individuals who do not have a legitimate need for the information,” the complaint adds.