
The families, represented by right-wing attorneys, claim the federal government’s policies on trans students amount to “discrimination” against cisgender students.
One transgender student. A whole lot of cisgender students. Result: lawsuit against trans*persons inclusivity, non-discrimination and protection policies.
The Obama administration is bullying Illinois families by requiring cisgender (nontrans) students to share a locker room with a transgender classmate, according to a federal lawsuit filed by 51 families in Palatine, Ill.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, claims the federal government is discriminating against students by allowing a transgender girl at William Fremd High School to use the locker room that corresponds with her gender identity.
The families are being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and Thomas More Society, both notorious right-wing, anti-LGBT legal nonprofits, which claim that the U.S. Department of Education’s inclusive stance on trans bathroom access is a “blatant violation of student privacy.”
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Wilson represents the 73 parents and 63 students who are named plaintiffs in recent lawsuit. The court filing alleges that since that ruling was handed down, using the locker room with a trans student has made life difficult for the plaintiffs’ families. “Every day these girls go to school, they experience embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, fear, apprehension, stress, degradation and loss of dignity because they will have to use the locker room and restroom with a biological male,” the complaint reads.
The suit further claims that female students who weren’t comfortable undressing in the presence of a trans person were “ridiculed and harassed by other students to such an extent that the stalls are not a practical option.” The students filing the claim further stated that their peers labeled them “transphobic” and “homophobic” due to their discomfort.
ThinkProgress‘s Zack Ford notes the irony that the aggrieved families refuse to accept the same accommodation the school initially offered the trans student — that she use a private restroom and changing facility, away from all other students.
Zack Ford has an in-depth story at Think Progress. The Advocate also has this story.