A mother from Maine has filed a federal lawsuit against the school board of her 13-year-old daughter after she was allegedly given a “chest binder,” a gender-transitioning device, and treated like a boy.
According to the National Review, Amber Lavigne claims that the Great Salt Bay Community School Board violated her constitutional rights when staff members secretly gave her daughter gender transition support.
The lawsuit claims that the transgender policies are unconstitutional because they allow for the concealment of or fail to require informing parents of a choice to provide “gender-affirming” care for a student.
The lawsuit was filed in US District Court on Wednesday by a resident of New Castle and attorneys from the conservative Goldwater Institute.
She asserts that a social worker gave the teen the chest-flattening garment and urged her to keep it a secret from her parents, which is the basis for the case.
Lavigne claims she spoke with Principal Kim Shaff and Superintendent Lynsey Johnston about the situation, but both of them sided with the social worker, Samuel Roy.
According to the news source, she claimed that school administrators refused to provide records, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
In her lawsuit, the mother claims that the gender counselling was “intentionally concealed” from her by school administrators.
“This was no accident: my daughter’s public school counselor deliberately tried to keep me in the dark, encouraging my daughter’s gender transition and encouraging her to hide it from me,” Lavigne said in a statement released by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute.
“When school officials found out, they actually defended the counselor’s actions, trampling on my constitutional rights at every turn. I deserve to know what’s happening to my child — the secrecy needs to stop,” she added.
Lead attorney Adam Shelton said: “The Supreme Court has repeatedly held, over the last century, that parents have a fundamental right to control and direct the education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions of their children.
“But parents cannot meaningfully exercise this right if public schools hide vital information about their children from them — which is exactly what the Great Salt Bay Community School did to Ms. Lavigne,” he added.According to the institute, the lawsuit names the entire school board as well as Johnston, Schaff, Roy, social worker Jessica Berk, and others.
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Great Salt Bay Community School.
According to The National Review, Johnston ignored its Wednesday queries.
The school staff’s adherence to state and federal civil rights laws pertaining to discrimination and privacy was defended by the principal in February.
“A misunderstanding of these laws pertaining to gender identity and privileged communication between school social workers and minor clients has resulted in the school and staff members becoming targets for hate speech and on-going threats,” Schaff wrote in a letter to parents, the National Review reported.
The Democrat Lavigne, who owns a mental health company, told the publication that her daughter started talking to a school social worker about her mental health issues, including some gender identity issues, near the end of seventh grade.
The parent claimed she discussed the problems with the employee but felt they weren’t very serious afterward.
According to the outlet, the girl’s mom found the chest binder in the eighth-bedroom grader’s after Roy, a new social worker, was assigned to her without Lavigne’s knowledge.
According to the Maine Wire, school administrators in Maine have defended policies that bar parents from gender transition counselling on the grounds that some might react negatively if their children asked to change their gender.
However, the lawsuit contends that Lavigne never gave school administrators any cause to think she would treat her daughter in such a manner if she learned about the counselling.
“[Lavigne] has never given Defendants cause to believe that [her daughter] will be harmed in any way by Plaintiff’s knowledge of such facts, nor is there any basis for such a belief. Consequently there is no rational basis for the Defendants’ withholding and concealing such information,” the filing states.
But shortly after Lavigne complained about the private counselling, a welfare agent from Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services paid her a visit based on an unnamed tip about alleged abuse, according to the lawsuit.
Lavigne told the Maine Wire in March that she thought the visit was a form of retaliation for speaking out against the school.
The anonymous complaint may have been filed by school officials, but they have refused to say so.
