LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Four Lexington families have filed a lawsuit against the Fayette County School Board and attorney general Daniel Cameron over Senate Bill 150.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Fayette Circuit Court, alleges the new law around bathroom access, pronoun use, and classroom speech violates students’ rights.
The plaintiffs are the Doe, Noe, Poe and Roe families who have been pseudonymously named to protect their identities.
Their children, who are 10 to 17, are transgender and non-binary students who attend various schools in Fayette County.
The bill bans gender affirming care for anyone under 18; bans schools from teaching anything about gender expression, sexual orientation or gender identity and also allows teachers to ignore a student’s preferred pronouns.
The families cite school personnel intentionally misgendering and outing students. The lawsuit states a moment when the parent of “Child Doe” spoke with an elementary school office employee who refused to use “Child Doe’s” preferred non-binary name and non-binary pronouns.
“This employee’s stated reason for this refusal was because the employee knew of Child Doe’s binary name typically associated with females as shown on Child Doe’s birth certificate provided to the school and/or maintained in the FCPS computer system. This employee is not a teacher and thus, had no instructional reason to know of Child Doe’s birth certificate information except to intrude upon the Doe family’s privacy,” the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit also stated the parents filed to have “Child Doe’s” legally changed to a non-binary name so the student’s preferred non-binary name and preferred gender pronouns would be used while they were at school.
The family of “Child Roe” said the student has been experiencing privacy issues with restroom usage. The 10-year-old, who is transgender, has been attending FCPS for three years.
On Aug. 17, “Child Roe” told her parents that she was “refused admittance to the girls’ restroom” during a break in the school day when all kids permitted to use the restroom. Instead, she alleges that school personnel sent her to a “special” restroom on the other side of the school and not the closest one to her classroom her female friends used during breaks.
Attorneys argue that had she been able use that bathroom previously without incident and traveling further away has caused her to miss more class time.
“The school restrooms that Child Roe and her friends have always used, have private stalls for each girl to use, but despite this fact, Child Roe was still refused and so humiliated and embarrassed by being segregated from the other girls during the first school-day’s restroom break that Child Roe now reports to her parents that she will not use the restroom at school at all and will instead “hold it” until she gets home,” the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit also challenges a portion of the law requiring school districts to eliminate instruction on human sexuality of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in first through fifth grade or ban instruction on studying sexual orientation or gender identity.
Attorneys believe this violates and harms the educational rights of students.
It is the first challenge to the education provisions of Senate Bill 150.
Another lawsuit is challenging the section of the bill that bans gender affirming care.
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