LGBT

Montgomery County Must Pay $1.5 Million to Religious Parents After Supreme Court Ruling

The Montgomery County Board of Education will pay $1.5 million in damages to religious parents for trampling parental rights and trying to indoctrinate their children with LGBT content. The school board will also comply with court-enforced protections for parental rights.

The settlement comes after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2025 in Mahmoud v. Tayler that schools can’t force children to participate in LGBT classroom material without giving parents the right to opt out their children based on their religious beliefs.

“Public schools nationwide are on notice: running roughshod over parental rights and religious freedom isn’t just illegal – it’s costly,” Eric Baxter, senior counsel at Becket and lead attorney for the parents, said in a statement.

Baxter added,

This settlement enforces the Supreme Court’s ruling and ensures parents, not government bureaucrats, have the final say in how their children are raised.

The case stems from Montgomery County school board’s 2022 decision to use several LGBT children’s books in preschool through 12th grade language arts curricula. These books promote “gender transitioning, Pride parades, and pronoun preferences to children as young as three and four,” Becket, which represents the parents, states.

One book, Prince & Knight, “conveys the message that same-sex marriage should be accepted by all as a cause for celebration,” Justice Samuel Alito recounted in the Mahmoud decision.

A second book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, presents the message that “two people can get married, regardless of whether they are of the same or the opposite sex.”

Another book, IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All, portrays a “transgender child in a sex-ambiguous bathroom” and “includes a discussion guide that asserts … ‘at any point in our lives, we can choose to identify with one gender, multiple genders, or neither gender.’” The book asks very young readers, “What pronouns fit you best?”

Yet another book, Born Ready, follows the story of Penelope, a biological female, who begs her mother to help her be a boy: “Please help me, Mama. Help me to be a boy.” After her mother agrees, Penelope exclaims, “For the first time, my insides don’t feel like fire. They feel like warm, golden love.”

The implication is that “it is seriously harmful to deny a gender transition and that transitioning is a highly positive experience,” Alito summarized.

When the school board first approved the curricula, it notified parents and allowed them to opt their children out of the material. In 2023, however, the district revised its policies and eliminated opt-outs.

Multiple religious families – including Muslims, Christians and Jews – successfully challenged the policy, arguing it violated their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

In the Mahmoud decision, Justice Alito, writing for the Court’s majority, said, “The right of parents ‘to direct the religious upbringing of their’ children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom.”

“The Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks – combined with its decision to withhold notice to parents and to forbid opt outs – substantially interferes with the religious development of their children,” Justice Alito concluded.

Now, the school board will pay a $1.5 million settlement, and a permanent injunction requires the board to “provide parents with advance notice when instructional materials addressing family life and human sexuality will be used and allow parents to opt their children out of that instruction.”

According to Becket’s 2025 Religious Freedom Index, 62% of Americans support the Court’s decision in Mahmoud.

“It took tremendous courage for these parents to stand up to the School Board and take their case all the way to the Supreme Court,” Baxter said. “Their victory reshaped the law and ensured that generations of religious parents will be able to guide their children’s upbringing according to their faith.”

To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).

Related articles and resources:

Resources: Sex Education

Talking About Sex And Puberty With Your Kids

How to Equip Your Teens with a Biblical Understanding of Sexuality

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents

Supreme Court Defends Religious Freedom, Parental Rights Over ‘LGBT’ Curriculum

Supreme Court Sympathetic to Opt-Outs for LGBT Curriculum

Photo from Shutterstock.

‘LGBTQ+’ Identity Likely Hits Peak Saturation in U.S.

Data continues to demonstrate we have likely hit the apex of trans and queer identity in the United States. That is worth celebrating.

The idea that anyone can be an “LGBTQ+” person — with all of its self-contradictory and exclusionary letters — is incoherent. Leading activists have been admitting this for years.

But young people have been adopting this “identity” in increasing numbers, often without any demonstrable evidence for their claim. They just claim it. This ever-expansive alphabet soup became an increasingly trendy political identifier, rather than anything denoting any actual change in behavior.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher famously poked fun at this reality years ago.

Gallup reported LGBT identification ticked up to 7.1% in 2022 from just 3.5% ten years earlier. Of course,  just ten years or more before that, hardly anyone identified this way because the ridiculous, ever-growing string of letters was just being invented. But it wasn’t done rising. Gallup reported it reached 9.3% in 2025.

Gallup is now reporting LGBT identification has declined slightly for first time since its relatively recent creation, from 9.3% last year to 9.0% today.

Other data supports this welcome development.

Late last year, the Daily Citizen reported here and here that “trans” identity and gender ideology was thankfully slipping among young Americans. This data came from University of Buckingham’s Eric Kaufmann, who documented “the decline of trans and queer identity among Young Americans” and San Diego State University scholar Jean Twenge’s finding that “identifying as nonbinary is in free fall among teens as young as 13.”

She added,

With three nationally representative samples showing a decline in transgender or nonbinary identity since 2023, its clear things have shifted just in the last few years. And now we know the change isn’t just among young adults – it extends to even the youngest teens.

The false shine of gender ideology appears to be fading.

We can pray this means we will never see as many of our young people supporting deceptive and meaningless “LGBTQ+” politics as we saw last year. Afterall, you can only artificially prop up a lie for so long. Eventually, it reveals itself for what it is. 

This is precisely what is happening with gender ideology.

Additional Resources:

A Singularly Christian View of the Transgender Problem

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System

What Does it Mean to Be Trans, Anyway?

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

Human Rights Campaign Trains Candidates Nationwide on Selling Gender Lies

It is an increasingly tough job for liberal candidates to put a reasonable face on gender ideology which is sacred to their political cause and worldview. This becomes even harder when politicians like the European Parliament erased the meaning of women and pregnancy in two overwhelming votes last week. Women parliamentarians stunningly cheered their own erasure. So much for women’s empowerment. 

It’s bonkersville out there. Now, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is only doubling down. 

The largest sexuality and gender redefinition organization in the world has just released its new report seeking to help radical politicians make gender lies seem wholly democratic and reasonable. Entitled, “One Year Out: LGBTQ+ Messaging Playbook for the Midterms,” this is the trans movement’s admission their message has been a millstone to their political fortunes. 

Kelley Robinson (she/her!), president of the Human Rights Campaign, admits the problem is large enough that it demands this report. She confesses she has a significant number of liberal candidates come to her asking, “What do I do when they come after me for supporting LGBTQ+ people?”

First, no people are LGBTQ+. It is logically impossible and self-contradictory for anyone to be all those letters. It is a meaningless category describing no one. Even celebrated founders of that movement are admitting that ever-expanding alphabet soup is silly and incoherent.

Second, this question demonstrates that speaking truth against gender lies is working. Gender activists are doing our work for us, amply revealing how they are trying to change the natural gravity of what it means to be human as male and female. People are seeing how this harms reality, as well as the meaning of marriage, parenting and the family itself.

This has been hurting liberal candidates, HRC’s president tells her fellow extremists it’s time to double-down and keep peddling the same confusion:

But let me be blunt about something else: We need candidates who are willing to take a risk. We need allies willing to speak out. We have no use for politicians who believe in equality in private but go mute when the cameras turn on.

They go mute, not because they don’t believe in gender ideology. They do. They go mute because they cannot defend the indefensible. Gay politics is not about inequality, but redefinition. It always has been. Redefining sexuality, marriage, the family and now male and female themselves.

People clearly see that the trans movement is a disturbed men’s movement to take over the very definition of womanhood and everything that is uniquely and powerfully feminine. They know “birthing people” is ridiculously offensive. “Chest feeding” is an affront to mothers. “People who menstruate” erases women in basic biology and physiology. Everyone knows “Caitlyn” Jenner and Dylan Mulvaney are guys, but we are all expected to play along to be nice.

LGBT redefinition of basic reality leads to madness like this:

HRC tells candidates, “Stop playing defense and start leading with conviction” and “don’t let them define you – define yourself.”  

They are clearly worried about how their issues will play in the coming midterms, warning, “Anti-equality candidates [read: people who know what a man and woman are] remain convinced that scapegoating transgender Americans is winning tactic.”

This is their strategy. They always make it personal, about “victims,” while reasonable people make it about reality. But that is their schtick and they are “schticking” with it. HRC’s report cries:

The midterm races have already begun. And despite the results of the 2025 elections, anti-equality candidates are at it again – running campaigns based on bigotry.

Yet HRC is furiously conducting message testing “in battleground U.S. House districts to identify the most effective messaging.” This is their own confession that what they have been doing to date has not been working. So, they explain, “After analyzing the results, we have developed a five-part framework for midterm candidates.” 

This is their strategy in a colorful graph that doesn’t really say anything beyond “Keep doing what you’ve been doing, just do it harder and louder!”

HRC reports they are holding trainings on their tactics around the country “in the coming months, and we also plan to deploy organizers to help campaigns in real time.” This is a sure sign they realize their message has not been resonating. Americans should be assured that truth is winning. Redefining male and female is not a winning message and never will be. But that is what the “LGBTQ” mission is and they are fully committed to it. 

Additional Resources

A Singularly Christian View of the Transgender Problem

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System

What Does it Mean to Be Trans, Anyway?

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

Jury Awards $2 Million to Young Woman Who Underwent ‘Transgender’ Surgery at 16

A New York jury awarded Fox Varian $2 million dollars in a malpractice lawsuit against medical professionals who attempted to socially and surgically “transition” her to look like the opposite sex. 

This is the first time a “detransitioner” has won a medical malpractice suit against those who caused irreversible psychological and physical damage to a person struggling with sexual identity confusion. 

Varian underwent a double mastectomy in 2019 when she was only 16 years old, hardly competent to consent to an operation that left her with scarring, ongoing pain, and the inability to ever nurse a child. 

Four years after her surgery, she filed a lawsuit against her psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, who had written a referral letter to Dr. Simon Chin, the surgeon who performed the double mastectomy on the teenager.    

Writing at The Free Press, Benjamin Ryan explained that the jury decision hinged on “whether the care providers failed to observe standard safeguards and whether any deviations from those standards injured the patient.”

Ryan reported that Varian was 15 when “she began questioning her gender during sessions with her psychologist.” Born Isabella, she first changed her name to Gabriel, identifying as androgynous. 

“Over the next two months,” Ryan explained, “she cut her hair short, began binding her breasts, switched her name again, to Rowan, and started telling people she was transgender.” 

Finally, only “11 months after she started this public social transition, Varian underwent surgery to remove her breasts.” 

Ryan evinced sympathy for Varian’s mother Claire Deacon, who was pressured to approve the surgery, reporting: 

Varian testified that Einhorn served as an enabler, repeatedly assuring her that the mastectomy she desired would greatly improve her well-being. Deacon testified that Einhorn browbeat her into consenting to her daughter’s surgery, threatening that she would otherwise commit suicide.

“Varian’s attorney Adam Deutsch had asked the jury for $8 million in damages,” The Epoch Times reported, adding that the jury award included “$1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering, and another $400,000 for future medical expenses.” 

Ryan attended all three weeks of the jury trial in White Plains and said this verdict “could change gender medicine,” adding, “There are nearly 30 known civil suits filed by detransitioners to date (the first was filed in 2022), almost all of them malpractice cases structured similarly to Varian’s.”

He explained: 

While there are no guarantees in medical malpractice lawsuits, legal experts believe Varian’s victory could inspire a wave of similar cases that would significantly disrupt pediatric gender medicine.

Other young women who were damaged by “transgender” drugs, hormones and surgeries, and who have filed lawsuits against medical institutions and professionals who harmed them, applauded the jury decision. 

Chloe Cole filed a lawsuit in 2023 alleging that Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, The Permanente Medical Group and three doctors had improperly treated her sexual identity confusion with chemical and surgical interventions, leaving her with “deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system.”

Doctors prescribed powerful puberty blockers and testosterone to Cole when she was only 13, performing a radical double mastectomy on her when she was only 15. 

Cole stated in a post on X, “I couldn’t be more happy for Fox Varian. Detransitioners need justice.” 

Prisha Mosley is another young woman who filed a lawsuit alleging medical fraud against those who used chemical and medical interventions in an attempt to make her look more like a male. Her lawsuit stated: 

Instead of telling Prisha the truth and informing her accurately and fully, Defendants lied to Prisha. They lied when they told Prisha she was actually a boy; they lied when they told her that injecting testosterone into her body would solve her numerous, profound mental and psychological health problems. …  And they lied by omission, withholding critical information from her about the long-term adverse health consequences and permanent damage these “treatments” would cause her, and failing to inform her of alternative courses of treatment for her psychological problems and ensure she had a clear understanding of those alternatives.

Part of her case was dismissed, but Mosley has appealed that decision. 

In an appearance on The Ingraham Angle, Mosley told Laura Ingraham how encouraged she was by the jury’s award to Varian: 

I think this sets an incredible precedent for detransitioners like me, who are trying to hold our doctors accountable. To see a win, an agreement from a jury that this patient was wronged, especially in a blue state like New York, is especially encouraging for detransitioners like me.

As Christians, we must have compassion on children — and adults — wrestling with sexual identity confusion. But true compassion means protecting strugglers from harmful and damaging drugs, hormones and surgeries.

Legal victories can’t undo the irreversible damage caused by these treatments. But, as legal experts told Benjamin Ryan, “Major jury awards could drive up malpractice insurance rates and perhaps even drive providers who fear reputational damage out of the field entirely.”

Related articles and resources: 

DOJ Targets Those Mutilating Children with ‘Transgender’ Drugs and Surgeries

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

Expert in ‘Transitioning’ Children Admits ‘We Were Wrong’ About Puberty Blockers

Focus on the Family: Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

Four Brave Young Women File Lawsuits Alleging Harm from ‘Transgender’ Interventions

More Hospitals Stop Mutilation of Sexually Confused Children

New Video Equips Parents and Counselors to Help ‘Gender Dysphoric’ Children

ReFOCUS with Jim Daly: Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

ReFOCUS with Jim Daly: Chloe Cole: Gender Reassignment Surgery Regret

Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show?

Washington State Citizens Fight for Parents’ Rights, Girls Sports

Supporters of parents’ rights and girls sports submitted two citizen initiatives to the Washington State Legislature. 

Restoring the Parents’ Bill of Rights, IL26-001, repeals sections of legislation passed in 2025 that stripped parents of their rights in education. 

The measure guarantees parents have access to their children’s instructional materials and school records; requires parental notification when schools provide medical services; allows parents to opt children out of surveys, questionnaires and sexual education; and assures families their religious beliefs will be respected. 

Initiative Measure IL26-638, Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports, prohibits “male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students.” 

Brian Noble, CEO of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, explained to the Daily Citizen, “Both initiatives are a demonstration of how citizens in Washington can impact policy despite conservatives being significantly outnumbered in both the Washington House and Senate.” 

He added: 

God has given us a scriptural mandate to be engaged actively on the battlefield of the public square. Scripture calls Christians to steward all that God has created, including the governmental sphere.

Let’s Go Washington collected more than 416,000 signatures for the parents’ rights initiative and more than 445,000 signatures for the girls sports measure. Valid signatures from 308,911 voters are needed to send the measure to the legislature. 

Brian Heywood, leader of Let’s Go Washington, commented on the two measures to the Washington State Standard, bluntly stating, “This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue.” 

The measures have “broad support,” he added, with more than half of the signatures coming from liberals and independents. 

Both proposals are “indirect initiated state statutes,” citizen-initiated ballot measures that are first presented to the Washington Legislature. According to Ballotpedia, the Legislature then has three options:  

  1. Adopt the initiative into law without sending it to the voters.
  2. Reject or not act on the initiative, in which case it is placed on the ballot for voters to decide.
  3. Approve an alternative version, in which case both the original proposal and the legislative alternative are placed on the ballot at the next state general election.

Current reports suggest the legislature will let the measures go the voters in November. 

The Parents’ Bill of Rights has a convoluted history. In 2024, Let’s Go Washington submitted enough signatures to send Initiative 2081, the first version of A Parents’ Bill of Rights, to the state legislature. The initiative passed and was signed into law. 

But then the legislature engaged in some tricksy behavior by passing HB 1296, a law which undermined local control of schools, supposedly “balanced” student rights with parents rights and actually eliminated some parents rights. Among other things, the legislation: 

  • Increased the time for schools to share records with parents from 10 business days to 45. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to access certain public school records, including medical or health records, and records of any mental health counseling.
  • Eliminated a parent’s right to be notified by public schools prior to medical services or medications being offered or referred to his or her child (even when it will cost parents).
  • Stripped the parental right to be notified and opt a child out of personally invasive surveys, assignments, role-playing activities, recordings or other student engagements. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to be notified if his/her child is taken or removed from a public school campus to stay at a youth shelter or “host home.” 

The new measure restores the original Parents’ Bill of Rights, rolling back the damaging effects of HB 1296. 

The Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports measure is also very much needed in Washington State. In December, Washington’s alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger reported, “In Washington, trans girls and boys have played with, and against, cis girls and boys for nearly two decades.” 

“Cis” is a term made up by transgender activists to designate real boys and girls, rather than those who mimic the opposite sex with clothes, makeup, drugs, hormones and surgeries. 

Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) requires all local educational agencies “to allow all students, including transgender and nonbinary students, the opportunity to participate on the interscholastic sports team that most closely aligns with their gender identity.” 

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education are currently investigating OSPI for allowing “males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities, thereby raising substantial Title IX concerns.” 

Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, supports both initiatives. Noble told us: 

FPIW has proudly supported these initiatives, and we will continue to advocate for parental rights and the safety of our children as these initiatives move through the legislative process. 

Focus on the Family also supports parental rights in education and protecting girls and women’s sports. We trust Washington Christians and conservatives will engage with the initiative process and support these to important measures. 

Related articles and resources: 

Family Policy Institute of Washington

Let’s Go Washington : Rally to Support The Initiatives

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Focus on the Family Transgender Resources

How to Get In Touch With Your State Policy Group

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies