{"id":6034,"date":"2023-10-04T05:03:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T05:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6034"},"modified":"2023-10-04T06:01:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T06:01:11","slug":"judge-rules-wisconsin-school-districts-gender-affirming-policy-without-parental-consent-violates-constitutional-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6034","title":{"rendered":"Judge Rules Wisconsin School District\u2019s Gender Affirming Policy Without Parental Consent Violates Constitutional Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/judge-rules-wisconsin-school-districts-gender-affirming-policy-without-parental-consent-violates-constitutional-rights\/mdkittle\/2023\/10\/04\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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In a major victory for parental rights, a Waukesha County judge ruled the Kettle Moraine School District\u2019s policy of affirming students\u2019 preferred gender identities without notifying guardians is a violation of basic constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

Judge Michael P. Maxwell, in what is expected to be a nationally watched ruling, found the southeast Wisconsin school district violated parents\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Court has before it what modern society deems a controversial issue \u2013 transgenderism involving minors within our schools. Clearly, the law on this issue is still developing across the country and remaining largely unsettled,\u201d Maxwell wrote in his ruling<\/a>. \u201cHowever, this particular case is not about that broad controversial issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis particular case is simply whether a school district can supplant a parent\u2019s right to control the healthcare and medical decisions for their children,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cThe well established case law in that regard is clear \u2013 Kettle Moraine can not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maxwell\u2019s order blocks the school district from \u201crefer[ring] to students using a name or pronouns at odds with the student\u2019s biological sex, while at school, without express parental consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The law firms sued Kettle Moraine for supporting and affirming\u00a0a minor student\u2019s gender transition at school over the parents\u2019 objections.<\/p>\n

According to the complaint, the plaintiff\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

WILL states the daughter is now grateful she never transitioned.<\/p>\n

The district refused to respect the parents\u2019 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 \u201caffirmation\u201d that she was a boy \u201creally messed her up.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the judge noted, the law on transgenderism involving minors in schools is far from settled. So is the science of gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n

As the plaintiffs\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

WILL & ADF brought two distinguished expert witnesses from child\u00a0psychology, Dr. Erica Anderson<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cParental 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,\u201d Anderson wrote in an affidavit<\/a> submitted to the court record.<\/p>\n

In his ruling, Maxwell noted that Kettle Moraine School District couldn\u2019t administer medicine to a student without parental consent. Nor could it require or allow a student to participate in a sport without parental consent.<\/p>\n

\u201cLikewise, the School District cannot change the pronoun of a student without parental consent without impinging on a fundamental liberty interest of the parents,\u201d the ruling states.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents\u2019 rights to direct the upbringing\u00a0and\u00a0education of their children is one of the most basic constitutional rights every parent holds dear,\u201d said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, in a press release. \u201cYet we are seeing more and more school districts across the country not only ignoring parents\u2019 concerns but actively working against them.\u00a0The court was right to\u00a0respect the serious concerns of these parents\u00a0by holding\u00a0that\u00a0Kettle Moraine School District\u2019s policy,\u00a0which undermines parents and harms children, violates the Wisconsin Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke Berg, WILL deputy legal counsel, said the decision sets a significant precedent that will bolster parental rights wins nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court confirmed that parents, not educators or school faculty, have the right to decide whether a social transition is in their own child\u2019s best interests,\u201d Berg said. \u201cThe decision should be a warning to the many districts across the country with similar policies to exclude parents from gender transitions at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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The post Judge Rules Wisconsin School District\u2019s Gender Affirming Policy Without Parental Consent Violates Constitutional Rights<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/judge-rules-wisconsin-school-districts-gender-affirming-policy-without-parental-consent-violates-constitutional-rights\/mdkittle\/2023\/10\/04\/ In a major victory for parental rights, a Waukesha…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6035,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034\/revisions\/6035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}