Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced that it filed a federal lawsuit against a Colorado school district that forced multiple girls to share sleeping arrangements with gender-confused boys, arguing that education officials have committed egregious violations of parental rights.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews in December 2023, Jefferson County Public Schools (JeffCo) assigned Joe and Serena Wailes’ 11-year-old daughter to share not only a room but a bed with a male student who “identified” as a girl and directed her not to tell her parents about the boy’s true sex.
Fortunately, her mother had been a chaperone on the trip, and after some unsuccessful attempts to move her daughter was able to have the gender-confused student moved to a different room.
“This time, the chaperones agreed to move (the gender-confused student) and one other girl to a different room but again lied about why, saying (a) sick roommate needed more space,” ADF explained at the time in a demand letter seeking clarification of the district’s policies. “Throughout the entire evening, (the gender-confused student’s) privacy and feelings were always the primary concern of JCPS employees.”
On September 5, ADF announced its lawsuit against JeffCo on behalf of the Wailes family and two others: Bret and Susanne Roller, whose 11-year-old son was sent on a camping trip with a “non-binary” 18-year-old female counselor, with their son unable to contact his parents; and Rob and Jade Perlman, whose child is slated for the same trip but wants to prevent a repeat of the situation.
Despite these situations, the district has said it intends to continue assigning such travel arrangements on the basis of “gender identity” rather than biological sex, without accommodation for objectors or advance notice.
According to district policy, “students who are transgender (sic) should be assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity consistently asserted at school.” Further, “transgender” students cannot be forced to “share a room with students whose gender identity conflicts with their own.”
“Parents, not the government, have the right and duty to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and that includes making informed decisions to protect their child’s privacy,” ADF attorney Kate Anderson said. “This fundamental right is especially vital for parents to protect their children from violations of bodily privacy by exposure to the opposite sex in intimate settings, like sleeping arrangements or shower facilities. If Jefferson County Public Schools is going to continue placing students of the opposite sex in the same room on overnight trips — as it confirmed it would — the district must let parents be the ones to make decisions about their children’s privacy. And they must provide the information necessary and inform parents about the policy so parents can make the best decisions for their children. The district must grant our clients’ reasonable request for accommodations that can be accomplished in a number of confidential ways that protect the privacy of all students.”
For years, LGBT activists have worked to promote “gender fluidity,” the idea that sexual identity is separate from biology and discernible only by personal perception, across public education, libraries, health care, and cultural traditions such as beauty contests, school homecomings, and athletic competitions.
Critics say their efforts have yielded a wide array of harms, both to the physical and mental health of gender-confused individuals themselves as well as to the rights, health, and safety of those who disagree, such as girls and women forced to share intimate facilities with males, female athletes forced to compete against biological males with natural physical advantages, and individuals forced to affirm false sexual identities in violation of their consciences, their understanding of scientific fact, and/or their religious beliefs.