A group of parents and students dropped their lawsuit Thursday against an Iron Range school district for allowing a transgender student to use the girls' locker room, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
Parents' group drops lawsuit over Minn. transgender student's locker room use
Virginia, Minn., group did not want the student to use the girls' locker room.
April 14, 2017 at 2:28AM
The lawsuit was filed in September after the Virginia school district changed its policy that once barred a transgender student at Virginia High School, known in court filings as Jane Doe, from using girls' facilities last school year to align with a federal rule. The school district, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice were named as defendants. Thursday's court filing does not elaborate on why the lawsuit was dropped.
The plaintiffs, a group of 10 families in the Virginia school district who called themselves "Privacy Matters," were represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. They alleged that the policy that let the transgender student use the locker room with their female children caused the girls to feel stressed and anxious at school, "knowing that to obtain an education they must attend to their most personal needs in private facilities unprotected from the entrance, presence, or exposure of a male," according to the lawsuit. In addition, the suit said, the students had to deal with Doe's locker room behavior, which included asking a girl for her bra size, dancing to sexually explicit music and changing clothes near girls who wanted their privacy.
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to intervene on behalf of the transgender student.
The ACLU said the lawsuit singled Doe out from her peers and used "misleading innuendo and salacious phrasing" for behaviors normal for a teenage girl.
According to a statement from the ACLU of Minnesota on Thursday, the lawsuit followed a "familiar pattern of organizations and individuals mischaracterizing what happens in restrooms and locker rooms in order to target innocent transgender youth," said Joshua Block, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's LGBT Project.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs could not be reached for comment.
Karen Zamora • 612-673-4647
Twitter: @KarenAnelZamora
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