A Maine mother is suing public school officials in federal court after they allegedly helped her 13-year-old daughter transition to present as a boy without her consent.
Amber Lavigne's lawsuit alleges that Great Salt Bay Community School counselor Samuel Roy used a fall counseling session to give her daughter secret advice on changing genders and provide her with a chest binder to flatten her breasts.
Filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Maine, the complaint argues the school violated Lavigne's constitutional rights by failing to inform her of the transgender support plan for her daughter.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held over the past century that one of the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment is the right of parents to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions, etc., of their children — a right the Court has characterized as fundamental," the suit states.
Roy and other school officials are named as defendants in the complaint, which seeks to change the school's policy of concealing student gender transitions from parents and using different gender pronouns for transitioning students on campus.
The suit also seeks an unspecified amount in damages for the costs incurred of removing the girl from the school. Lavigne said she pulled her daughter out after finding the chest binder while cleaning her bedroom Dec. 2.
When she confronted school officials, they refused to fire Roy, she said.
In public statements dated Dec. 19 and Jan. 14, which are both included in court documents, school officials claim that Great Salt Bay has a legal duty to support students' gender transitions.
In one of the statements, Great Salt Bay Consolidated School District Chair Samuel Belknap reportedly said that the school's policies "comply with Maine law, which protects the rights of all students and staff, regardless of gender/gender identity, to have equal access to education, the supports and services available in our public schools, and the student's right to privacy regardless of age."
Great Salt Bay adopted transgender guidelines in 2019 that state teachers must allow students to use opposite-sex names, pronouns and clothing, as well as use of the sex-segregated spaces of their preferred gender.
"To the extent that the school is not required to use a student's legal name or gender on school records or other documents, the school should use the name and gender identified in the student's plan," the guidelines read.
In a press release from the Goldwater Institute, which is representing Lavigne in the case, she said a child's desire to change their gender should not be kept from parents.
"I deserve to know what's happening to my child — the secrecy needs to stop," she said.
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