Hilliard student coerced to ‘identify as opposite sex,’ anti-LGBTQ+ lawsuit says
Watch a previous NBC4 report on the lawsuit against Hilliard schools in the video player above.
HILLIARD, Ohio (WCMH) — Several central Ohio parents suing Hilliard City Schools allege a student suffering from “severe emotional trauma” was pressured by teachers to adopt “a new name and identity as the opposite sex.”
Nine Hilliard parents say school officials “treated the child as the opposite sex” without parental consent after “diagnosing” the student with gender dysphoria, according to the filing in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio. The complaint claims the district deceived the student’s parents, while the child’s “condition spiraled out of control” and led to a suicide attempt.
“The district’s acts were reckless because district officials are not qualified — and are specifically denied entitlement to — make diagnoses and treatment decisions for somebody else’s child,” the parents’ second amended complaint filed on April 1 argues. “Such acts will inevitably lead to harm.”
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While referring to the student as “an opposite-sex name” in school, teachers referred to the child in the presence of their parents with pronouns consistent with their “biological sex,” meaning the sex listed on the student’s birth certificate. The parents only learned the district “treated [the student] for gender dysphoria” when a school secretary sent the child a postcard, the filing claims.
In a response to the complaint filed by the district on April 15, Hilliard City Schools denied nearly all of the parents’ claims and said the “alleged damages, if any, were proximately caused by the sole or contributory or comparative negligence of the plaintiffs.” The district “acted reasonably, in good faith, upon advice of counsel, in accordance with law and/or in the exercise of their statutory duties and responsibilities,” the response says.
In a statement to NBC4, Hillard schools argued the substance of the complaint remains the same as the original version of the parents’ suit filed in January of 2023, and said its position has not change. The district reiterated its motion to dismiss remains applicable, and they await the ruling on this matter.
Hilliard schools said at the time of the original filing that the complaint consisted “of thread-bare assertions, innuendo, rumor, and spurious legal conclusions.” Hilliard Superintendent David Stewart said the filing was “filled with misstatements of fact and mischaracterizations.”
Still, the parents are seeking damages and are asking the court to deem the district’s “policies” unconstitutional. The group says, through “professional therapy and counseling,” that the student and their parents now understand the child’s “problems were not gender dysphoria.”
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This student’s alleged experience is one of several reasons the parents said they are concerned the district is “hiding their child’s gender dysphoria from them,” the complaint states. The group asks in the filing whether the district could “affirmatively deceive parents” if said parent is not a “safe person” because they don’t support the LGBTQ+ community.
“‘Support’ for ‘[LGBTQ+] youth or issues’ is a matter of personal opinion,” the parents state. “Thus, a district official’s opinion of whether a parent is a ‘safe person’ could arise from judgments related to a parent’s constitutionally-protected practices, such as practicing certain religions, expressing certain political views.”
The suit also renews calls on the court to stop district teachers from wearing LGBTQ-supportive badges that read “I’m Here” with a Pride flag design on the front, a request made in the parents’ original complaint against the district.
Teachers were given permission to continue wearing the badges in 2022 after some parents expressed concern over a code on the back that could lead to websites inappropriate for children. School officials said in January of last year they discussed the possibility of students accessing inappropriate material, and agreed that the codes should be covered so that they would not be visible. The district said at the time it was not aware of any student accessing the QR code or materials.
“Any teacher who chose to wear one of the badges clearly understood that the resources at the link were intended for adults, not students,” Stewart said in a statement in 2022. “The resources are provided for teachers’ personal growth and professional development.”
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The April filing also raises the issue of surveys allegedly given to students, asking which pronouns they prefer at school and which pronouns students prefer the teacher use when speaking to parents, a second renewed claim that was made in the original 2023 filing. However, school officials said the survey was not a practice of the district. Stewart said he made clear to administrators that the district does not support surveying students on this topic or in this context.
Another claim made in the first filing said school officials were allowing “activist teachers” to facilitate conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity with children as young as 6 years old without parental consent. The complaint had said teachers were taking specific actions to hide these conversations, calling the situation “a recipe for indoctrination and child abuse.”
However, this language was removed from the parents’ most recent filing. At the time, the district said “making broad-brush accusations such as those in this lawsuit detract from the district’s mission and the educational efforts of our dedicated staff and teachers.”
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