KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The parents of a female transgender student in Missouri have filed a lawsuit against the Platte County R-3 School District, alleging the 16-year-old student was denied access to the girls' restroom and locker rooms.
The American Civil Liberties Union helped the girl and her parent, Dustan Farr of Clinton, Missouri, file the lawsuit, which stemmed from the girl’s time at Platte County High School between September 2021 and December 2022.
In the suit, attorneys claim the girl was told by an assistant principal at the high school that district policy required students to use the restroom of their sex designated at birth or the school’s sole gender-neutral restroom.
LINK | Read the lawsuit
Despite the assistant principal’s direction, the student started using the girl's restrooms at the high school, eventually drawing “several verbal warnings” from district staff. By January 2022, the district had punished the student with both in-school and out-of-school suspensions.
Attorneys say the girl started using the boys' restrooms in January but was a victim of verbal harassment from classmates that caused her to miss school out of fear of additional harassment.
That April, the girl’s parents filed a discrimination charge with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights.
The family eventually moved out of the district in January 2023.
In May, the family heard back from MCHR, which issued a “Notice of Right to Sue,” allowing a lawsuit to proceed within 90 days.
“Forcing transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their sex designated at birth is not only discrimination but dangerous and causes serious harm to Missouri’s youth,” ACLU of Missouri deputy director of litigation Gillian Wilcox said Tuesday in a press release. “Both through the Constitution and by statute of the government, a school, in this case, is prohibited from discriminating against the people it is supposed to protect on the basis of either their sex or disability.”
The lawsuit — which alleges sex discrimination, disability discrimination and violation of Article I, Section 2 of the Missouri Constitution, which reads “all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and opportunity under the law" — names the district and members of the board of education — Doug Doll, Shawn Chiddix, Sharon Sherwood, Karen Bryant, Mike Matousek, Amy Maccuish and Tyler Fadler — as defendants.
In a statement to KSHB 41 News, Superintendent Dr. Jay Harris confirmed the district was aware of the lawsuit and evaluating the legal claims.
“The district’s focus is, and has always been, providing a safe and caring environment for all students,” Harris said. “We plan to provide additional information soon.”
Attorneys representing the student say she started to identify as female at the age of 6 or 7 but did not start the transition process, counseling followed later by a hormone blocker, until 2019 when she was roughly 12 years old. She started hormone replacement therapy in 2023 and “has fully transitioned socially and lives as a female.”
The lawsuit was filed Monday, July 31, in Platte County Circuit Court. Judge W. Ann Hansbrough was assigned the case, with a 90-day docket call scheduled for Nov. 3, 2023.
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