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EC school district sued by parents' organization

Sep. 7—EAU CLAIRE — Parents Protecting Our Children, an Eau Claire-based group of parents with students in the Eau Claire Area School District, filed a federal lawsuit against the district, Superintendent Michael Johnson and the school board for its policies toward transgender students.

Represented by conservative firms America First Legal and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, PPOC alleges the district has "adopted policies facilitating gender transitions that might occur at school without any parental notification or consent;" impede upon parents' First Amendment right to religious freedom; and may have long-term damaging effects to a child's psyche and sense of identity.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, comes in response to an equity training facilitator guide that received backlash last spring.

The guide, which focused on creating safe spaces for LGBTQ students, noted that "parents are not entitled to know their kids' identities. That knowledge must be earned."

In another district document, the "Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support" plan, the district explained: "Some transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-nonconforming students are not 'open' at home for reasons that may include safety concerns or lack of acceptance."

Also under scrutiny in the lawsuit is the district's implementation of Gender Support Plans. Gender Support Plans are individualized documents intended to create a shared understanding of the ways in which a student's "authentic gender" will be accounted for and supported at school.

These plans allow students to list preferred names and gender pronouns, identify staff and family members who are aware of their gender status, and identify any facility accommodations that may need to be made.

The PPOC lawsuit alleges that the document lacks any requirement to notify the student's parents that the district "is renaming their child or giving him or her a new gender identity."

The suit argues this is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Wisconsin Constitution, which protect the parental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children.

While the Gender Support Plan does denote that a student's gender status will remain confidential, it also states: "If parents are not involved in creating this plan, and student states they do not want parents to know, it shall be made clear to the student that this plan is a student record and will be released to their parents when they request it. This is not a privileged document between the student and the school district."

Also citing the Fourteenth Amendment, the lawsuit posits that affirmation of a child's "gender dysphoria" at a young age can have negative impacts on their mental health, including depression and anxiety. If a child needs professional support, the complaint argues, parents need to be made aware of the situation.

"ECASD's policy runs directly against the recommendations of medical experts with decades of experience treating gender dysphoria and children wrestling with gender identity and their biological sex," the lawsuit states.

"Multiple studies have shows that the vast majority of children who struggle with their gender identity or experience gender dysphoria ultimately resolve to comfort with their biological sex, if they do not transition to receive immediate affirmation that their perceptions represent their true identity."

According to the American Psychiatric Association, gender dysphoria is designated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) as a clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence, which may include desire to change primary or secondary sex characteristics. The APA noted not all transgender or gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria.

The civil suit's final point alleges the district is violating the First Amendment of "most" PPOC members. The document states that those members have "sincerely held religious beliefs that there are only two sexes, that their children are born either male or female, and that this characteristic is immutable."

"As a direct result of their religious beliefs," the complaint states, "if these PPOC members' children ever experience gender identity issues or gender dysphoria, they would not immediately 'affirm' whatever beliefs their children might have about their gender, but would instead remind them that they were 'fearfully and wonderfully made' ... and seek to help them understand and address the underlying causes of their discomfort with their body and learn to accept and embrace their God-given sex."

The complaint draws attention back to the equity training guide, which directly refers to religious objections.

"It's important to take a moment and reaffirm that religion is not the problem (after all, there are millions of queer people of various faith traditions); rather it's the weaponization of religion against queer people," the guide reads.

The complaint calls this "overtly antagonistic toward religious people," and concludes that the training implies that parents who are not affirming are abusing their children, are "oppressive" and do not support their own children.

AFL President Stephen Miller referred to the district's policies as "lawless marxist indoctrination."

"Eau Claire schools have adopted a monstrous plan to secretly 'change' the genders of children as young as 5 — without parental consent — effectively subjecting them to unnatural ideological experiments contrary to their health and biology," stated Miller in a Wednesday news release. "This revolutionary crusade to remake and reshape our children ... must be extricated root and branch from our schools."

Tim Nordin, president of the Eau Claire school board, said the matter has been passed on to the district's legal counsel. For now, he said the district will not take an official stance on the case until further examination is completed.

"This seems to be a continuation of some of the issues that were raised in the spring," Nordin said. "And I don't think my position has changed since the spring, but I don't have any official comment on it right now."