In a major victory for parental rights, a Waukesha County judge ruled the Kettle Moraine School District’s policy of affirming students’ preferred gender identities without notifying guardians is a violation of basic constitutional rights.
Judge Michael P. Maxwell, in what is expected to be a nationally watched ruling, found the southeast Wisconsin school district violated parents’ constitutional rights to raise their own children by allowing minor students to change gender identity at school without parental consent and even over their objection.
“This Court has before it what modern society deems a controversial issue – transgenderism involving minors within our schools. Clearly, the law on this issue is still developing across the country and remaining largely unsettled,” Maxwell wrote in his ruling. “However, this particular case is not about that broad controversial issue.”
“This particular case is simply whether a school district can supplant a parent’s right to control the healthcare and medical decisions for their children,” the judge wrote. “The well established case law in that regard is clear – Kettle Moraine can not.”
Maxwell’s order blocks the school district from “refer[ring] to students using a name or pronouns at odds with the student’s biological sex, while at school, without express parental consent.”
The case was brought in 2021 by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of parents identified only by their initials in the lawsuit.
The law firms sued Kettle Moraine for supporting and affirming a minor student’s gender transition at school over the parents’ objections.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff’s daughter began to question her gender in December 2020 and, for a time, wanted to go by a male name and pronouns while at school. Her parents sought professional and medical support for her, deciding after extensive research that immediately treating her as a boy would not be in her best interest.
WILL states the daughter is now grateful she never transitioned.
The district refused to respect the parents’ decision, according to the lawsuit, forcing them to withdraw her from the school. A few weeks later, their daughter realized her parents were right and expressed that the “affirmation” that she was a boy “really messed her up.”
As the judge noted, the law on transgenderism involving minors in schools is far from settled. So is the science of gender dysphoria.
As the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued, many medical professionals believe that transitioning to a different gender identity at a young age can become self-reinforcing and even do long-term harm. So, they recommend a cautious approach.
WILL & ADF brought two distinguished expert witnesses from child psychology, Dr. Erica Anderson, a transgender woman and licensed psychologist practicing in Berkeley, California, with more than 40 years of experience, and Dr. Stephen Levine, a clinical psychiatrist and professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine with decades of experience with gender dysphoria.
“Parental involvement is necessary to obtain professional assistance for a child or adolescent experiencing gender incongruence, to provide accurate diagnosis, and to treat any gender dysphoria or other coexisting conditions,” Anderson wrote in an affidavit submitted to the court record.
In his ruling, Maxwell noted that Kettle Moraine School District couldn’t administer medicine to a student without parental consent. Nor could it require or allow a student to participate in a sport without parental consent.
“Likewise, the School District cannot change the pronoun of a student without parental consent without impinging on a fundamental liberty interest of the parents,” the ruling states.
“Parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children is one of the most basic constitutional rights every parent holds dear,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, in a press release. “Yet we are seeing more and more school districts across the country not only ignoring parents’ concerns but actively working against them. The court was right to respect the serious concerns of these parents by holding that Kettle Moraine School District’s policy, which undermines parents and harms children, violates the Wisconsin Constitution.”
Luke Berg, WILL deputy legal counsel, said the decision sets a significant precedent that will bolster parental rights wins nationwide.
“The court confirmed that parents, not educators or school faculty, have the right to decide whether a social transition is in their own child’s best interests,” Berg said. “The decision should be a warning to the many districts across the country with similar policies to exclude parents from gender transitions at school.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
