A group of anonymous parents have filed a lawsuit against the Madison (Wisconsin) Metropolitan School District challenging a district policy that encourages teachers to assist students to pursue transitioning to a different gender identity to include the use of a new name and pronouns to while at school. Not only does the policy allow this activity without notifying parents, it also allows teachers and staff to actively conceal the information from parents.
 
According to the policy, “School staff shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to others, including parents or guardians and other school staff unless legally required to do so.” It goes so far to require teachers to use “the student’s affirmed name and pronouns in the school setting, and their legal name and pronouns with family.”
 
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Roger Brooks, who represents the parents along with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, noted, “This is a life-altering decision that educators have no business making. …When schools cast aside biological reality in favor of gender identity ideology, it’s children who are hurt the most.”
 
An affidavit in support of the complaint was submitted by Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. In it he states: “For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself, and could readily lead to additional psychological problems.”
 
The parents’ motion for an injunction against the policy is on hold pending the appeal of the circuit court’s decision requiring the plaintiffs to identify themselves.

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