A group of Wisconsin parents have sued the Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) for adopting “transgender” policies where teachers, counselors and administrators work with students to change their “gender identity” – without parental involvement.
These parents formed an association, Parents Protecting Our Children (PPOC) and filed a federal lawsuit that “seeks to vindicate parents’ fundamental rights to care for and raise their children, and to religious freedom.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of parents by America First Legal (AFL) and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), allege that the district’s “Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” mandates that “schools and teachers hide information regarding a child’s health and mental well-being from parents.”
AFL President Stephen Miller stated:
Eau Claire schools have adopted a monstrous plan to secretly ‘change’ the genders of children as young as five – without parental consent – effectively subjecting them to unnatural ideological experiments contrary to their health and biology. …
This revolutionary crusade to remake and reshape our children … must be extricated root and branch from our schools.
It’s the third lawsuit against a Wisconsin school district, reports Wisconsin Family Action, a group that works to promote marriage, life, religious freedom and parental rights. The other two suits were filed against Kettle Moraine School District and Madison Metropolitan School District, for also having “policies that allow children to change their gender identity at school without parental notice or consent.”
As reported previously by the Daily Citizen, the Kettle Moraine suit was filed by parents of a 12-year-old girl, after the school worked to “transition” her into living as a “boy” – against the parents’ instructions.
Wisconsin Family Action says:
Parental rights are indispensable for a thriving society, as parents are best equipped to guide and protect their children. The left has waged a war on these rights, but we are reaching a turning point as parents begin to recognize the abuse that is happening to their children.
According to the complaint, ECASD’s gender policy “allows and requires District staff to treat a child as if he or she is the opposite sex, by changing the child’s name, pronouns, and intimate facility use, all without the parents’ knowledge or consent.”
School and staff hold meetings with the child to develop “A Student Gender Support Plan,” which may be kept hidden from parents. The complaint calls this an “insidious invasion of parental rights” and says:
The obvious purpose of such secrecy is to prevent parents from making critical decisions for their own minor children, from interfering with the school’s ideologically-driven activities, from caring for their children, or from freely practicing their religion.
ALF and WILL released an official “Facilitators Guide” from an ECASD “equity” staff training where the policy of hiding information from parents is explained.
A part of the session is titled, “Queer People and United States Law,” and facilitators are told:
The next slide gives instructions to facilitators if religious objections to gender ideology are brought up:
The complaint against the school district says this training “is overtly antagonistic toward religious parents,” adding:
ECASD sees its role as superior to that of the parent in determining what care is appropriate for a parent’s gender-questioning child, and it denies any parent whose view conflicts with ECASD’s preferred treatment options from information about their own child.
WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg said:
Policies like Eau Claire’s blatantly violate parents’ constitutional rights to raise their children. School staff do not replace parents while their children are at school. A gender identity transition is a major event in a child’s life; schools must defer to parents about this.
The case is Parents Protecting Our Children, UA v. Eau Claire Area School District, Wisconsin, et al.
Related articles and resources:
Fighting for the Next Generation: School Board Elections and Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Parents Win First Legal Round Against School District Over Gender ‘Transition’ Policy
School Board Elections – Fighting for the Next Generation
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