Education bureaucrats in the leftist enclave of Colorado have decided that students in the Jefferson County school district will be subjected to housing rules, on school trips, based on “gender identity.”
And their action has gotten them named in a federal lawsuit.
It is the Alliance Defending Freedom that says it has filed a case against the school district for “violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about the upbringing and education of their children.”
The district’s policy demands that students are assigned to share overnight accommodations based on “gender identity.”
That means girls could be forced to share intimate areas, even beds, with a boy who simply says he’s a girl.
Problematic is the decision by school officials to refuse to tell parents that while “girls” will be housed on one floor and “boys” on another, they have “redefined the words ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ to mean a student’s self-asserted ‘gender identity’ rather than sex.”
Further, the district “refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, thus hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy,” the legal team said.
”Parents, not the government, have the right and duty 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 said in a prepared statement.
”This fundamental right is especially vital for parents to protect their children from violations of bodily privacy by exposure to the opposite sex in intimate settings, like sleeping arrangements or shower facilities. If Jefferson County Public Schools is going to continue placing students of the opposite sex in the same room on overnight trips—as it confirmed it would—the district must let parents be the ones to make decisions about their children’s privacy. And they must provide the information necessary and inform parents about the policy so parents can make the best decisions for their children. The district must grant our clients’ reasonable request for accommodations that can be accomplished in a number of confidential ways that protect the privacy of all students.”
The lawsuit is on behalf of multiple parents including Bret and Susanne Wailes.
They “allowed their 11-year-old daughter to attend a district-sponsored trip to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,” and “were told their daughter would be rooming with three other fifth-grade girls. It wasn’t until their daughter was in her room getting ready for bed on the first night of the trip that she discovered she was to share a bed with a boy who identified as a girl.”
When they asked for “reasonable accommodations—asking the school district to allow parents to opt their children out of any policy, prior to an overnight trip, that rooms children by gender identity rather than sex,” school officials refused.
And, ADF said, Bret and Susanne Roller sent their 11-year-old son on JeffCo’s annual sixth grade camping trip and were told their son would be in a cabin with other boys, as well as a male high school counselor.
The truth, which was concealed by the district, is that the “counselor” was a “non-binary” female. That person’s responsibilities included supervising boys’ showers.
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