OAN’s Abril Elfi
5:32 PM – Thursday, December 21, 2023
Parents of an eighth-grade autistic girl are suing a Michigan public school district for referring to her using masculine pronouns and a male name without their knowledge or consent.
On Monday, Dan and Jennifer Mead filed a lawsuit against the Rockford Public School District after they discovered that the school had been using “he/him” pronouns for their daughter.
The lawsuit alleges that the school violates the parent’s 1st and 14th Amendment rights.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the lawsuit on behalf of the parents, claiming that for at least two months, staff members at East Rockford Middle School called their daughter a male name and used masculine pronouns.
The parents learned that this was happening back in October 2022, when a school counselor accidentally wrote the child’s “masculine name” in one section of a report that was later mailed home. The lawsuit claimed that throughout the remainder of the document, the eighth-grader’s feminine name assigned at birth was used instead.
“At first, the Meads thought this was a mistake — that another child’s information had been included in their daughter’s documents,” said the ADF in a statement. “When the Meads asked district employees to refrain from using the masculine name and male pronouns, the district refused to comply with their wishes.”
The student, who first started speaking with the school counselor at East Rockford Middle School in 2020, was also recently given an autism diagnosis.
The Meads had maintained regular communication with the district staff and “placed significant trust in the counselor as well as other employees” the last two years.
Nevertheless, the complaint claims that the school withheld important information from the parents and that the child only wanted to be referred to as a boy with a male name and masculine pronouns right after her sessions with the school counselor began.
According to the Washington Times, the Meads claim that homeschooling has resulted in the couple losing income and are requesting an undisclosed sum in compensatory damages.
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