Pennsylvania moms win lawsuit over secret transgender lesson for 1st graders

Three mothers who sued their Pennsylvania school district after their young children were subjected to transgender-affirming lessons have won in court.

The ruling, filed Sept. 30, upheld the parents’ rights to receive advance notice and opt out of such lessons. Defendants included school officials of the Mt. Lebanon School District and the teacher, Megan Williams.

“A teacher instructing first-graders and reading books to show that their parents’ beliefs about their children’s gender identity may be wrong directly repudiates parental authority,” read the court’s opinion. “The heart of parental authority on matters of the greatest importance within their own family is undermined when a teacher tells first-graders their parents may be wrong about whether the student is a boy or a girl.” 

The controversy began on Mar. 31, 2022, which some celebrate as “Transgender Visibility Day.” 

Williams, who is also a mother of a transgender child, read two books about gender identity aloud to her first-grade class: When Aidan Became a Brother and Introducing Teddy: A gentle story about gender and friendship. 

Williams told her class, “When children are born, parents make a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl. Sometimes parents are wrong.”  

Young students became confused, the suit says, with one remarking, “I don’t get it.”  

“But I’m a boy,” another distressed student reportedly said. “I don’t want to be a girl.”  

When concerned parents reached out to district leadership, they say they were stonewalled.  

“School districts violate [parental rights] by leaving parents out of key decisions about their own children,” wrote Vincent Wagner, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the plaintiffs. “The school district here failed to notify these parents about instruction their young elementary schoolers would receive on the sensitive topic of gender identity.  

“Without notice and a real chance to opt their children out of instruction like this, parents can’t exercise their constitutional rights. We are grateful the district court protected the rights of parents to receive information and be able to make good decisions for their children.”  

The plaintiffs were awarded nominal damages of $1 and a declaratory relief stating parents have a right to “advanced notice and the ability to opt their elementary-age children out of noncurricular instruction on transgender topics.”