School Officials Secretly Transitioned 13-Year-Old Girl: Lawsuit

Officials at a school in Maine secretly gave a 13-year-old girl a tool to compress her breasts and began calling the girl a boy without letting the girl’s mother know, according to a new lawsuit.

The mother, Amber Lavigne, did not learn of the secret transition until she found a chest binder in her daughter’s room one day.

Confronted with the tool, the daughter said that Samuel Roy, a social worker at her school, Great Salt Bay Community School in Maine, had given it to her and instructed her on how to use it, according to the 35-page suit.

Roy also allegedly told the girl, identified as A.B. in the complaint, he wouldn’t inform her parents and that she did not need to let them know.

Chest binders are used to compress breasts and adopt a different appearance. They are commonly used by girls seeking to become known as boys. Side effects include back pain and trouble breathing.

Lavigne later learned that Roy and other school officials, including social worker Jessica Berk, had been calling her daughter by a different name and using different gender pronouns.

“Plaintiff is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Defendants Roy and Berk chose, at A.B’s request, to use a different name and pronouns when speaking to or about A.B., and that other officials at the school, including some teachers, did so afterwards. At no time, however, did any Defendant or any other school official inform Plaintiff of these facts,” the suit states.

The school’s 5-page transgender student policy says that a student “will be considered transgender if, at school, he/she consistently asserts a gender identity or expression different from the gender assigned at birth.”

Under the policy, a student who professes to be transgender should contact their guidance counselor or another official and a plan should be developed by the school, in consultation with the student and the student’s parents, to “address the student’s particular needs.”

A student who wants to be called by a name that is not their birth name and pronouns that don’t correspond with their birth sex should be referred to by the name and pronouns they desire, according to the policy. The student should be able to use restrooms corresponding to their identified sex.

While the policy doesn’t say the information should be withheld from the parents, the suit says defendants withheld the information about A.B. “pursuant to a blanket policy, pattern, and practice of withholding and concealing information respecting ‘gender-affirming’ treatment of minor children from their parents.”

Meetings

After finding the chest binder, Lavigne met with the school’s principal, Kim Schaff, and the county superintendent, Lynsey Johnston.

Lavigne says the officials expressed concern about the information being withheld from her but in a second meeting, claimed no policies had been violated.

Lavigne says she withdrew her daughter from the school as a result of what happened.

Just days later, agents with the Maine Office of Child and Family Services visited her home, saying they’d been tipped off about alleged emotional abuse by the woman against her daughter.

An investigation did not substantiate the claim.

Defendants did not respond to requests for comment.

The Great Salt Bay Community School Board has said in a statement that all students have a “right to privacy regardless of age” and that it has an “obligation to maintain the confidentiality of student and employee information.” In another statement, the board said that giving the minor girl a chest binder and transitioning her without parental input did not violate any policy or law.

School policy forbids asking a student to keep a secret.

Schaff has said that the social workers’ actions were guided by state law, which says that “a school counselor or school social worker may not be required, except as provided by this section, to divulge or release information gathered during a counseling relation with a client or with the parent, guardian or a person or agency having legal custody of a minor client.”

Violation

The actions by school officials violated the constitutional rights of Lavigne bestowed by the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, according to the suit.

“Plaintiff has a fundamental constitutional right to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions of her children,” it says. “By withholding and concealing vital information about her minor child’s asserted gender identity—information any conscientious parent has a compelling interest in knowing—Defendants effectively rendered it impossible for Plaintiff to exercise that fundamental constitutional right.”

“For example, by withholding and concealing information from Plaintiff, Defendants left Plaintiff without the ability to choose how to advise A.B. with respect to the risks and benefits of wearing a chest binder, or the potential future consequences of employing an alternate name and pronouns,” it states.

Defendants did not have any basis for withholding the information because Lavigne had never caused them to believe that A.B. would be harmed by her mother learning about her preferences, the suit says.

Lavigne is asking the court to enter a judgment against the defendants for constitutional violations, an injunction against calling any of Lavigne’s children by different names or pronouns without express consent from the mother, nominal damages of $1, and actual damages for the amount incurred by Lavigne as a result of removing her daughter from school and attorney fees.

Lavigne is being represented by attorneys with the Goldwater Institute.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly held, over the last century, that parents have a fundamental right to control and direct the education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions of their children,” Goldwater Institute attorney Adam Shelton, lead attorney on the case, said in a statement. “But parents cannot meaningfully exercise this right if public schools hide vital information about their children from them—which is exactly what the Great Salt Bay Community School did to Ms. Lavigne.”