VICKSBURG, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Ever since the Democratic Party started pushing for rights for transgenders, parents across the country have been speaking out against allowing boys to participate in girls sports and allowing boys in girls locker rooms and bathrooms.
A group of parents in Vicksburg, Michigan, about 25 minutes south east of Kalamazoo, has had enough and filed a lawsuit against the Vicksburg School district. In the case of Jane Does #1-4 (minors) vs. the school district, the superintendent, the assistant superintendent and two principals, they are suing for seven civil rights and Title IX violations citing violating the privacy of girls in the school, citing discrimination and harassment against them.
In the introduction of the lawsuit, it says, “This case is about the intentional violation of children’s fundamental right to bodily privacy contrary to constitutional and statutory principles, including the Fourteenth Amendment, Title IX, invasion of seclusion, and the Michigan’s Revised School Code being MCL 380. l et seq, which requires separate facilities based on sex.”
In the lawsuit, it alleges that some of the girls have been forced to watch boys undress in front of them which violates local police requiring a trans student to undress behind a bathroom stall.
The National Review reports that the lawsuit, which was filed in the district court for the Western District of Michigan on August 25th, was initiated after four female high school students found an exposed male in their bathroom.
The lawsuit states that the district “secretly” allows biological boys to use girls’ rest rooms and locker rooms. It says, “The School District had not informed plaintiffs or their guardians that despite the words on locker room and restroom doors, they would no longer protect plaintiffs’ expectation of privacy from viewing or being viewed by members of the opposite sex when they are present in multi-user private facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms.”
After their privacy was violated, the lawsuit states that the School District’s actions marginalized and shamed the plaintiffs and unlawfully attempted to coerce and intimidate plaintiffs into acccepting continuing violations of their bodily privacy.
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When the female students informed the administrators at the high school that boys were exposing themselves in the restroom, the administrator had said, “It’s fine,” telling them that they should “tolerate it” and make the situation as “natural” as possible including to “look away” and not “bully” the biological male. They were told “the law was settled” and that students who mentally identify themselves with the opposite sex could choose the locker room and restroom to use, and physical sex did not matter.
The lawsuit goes on to say that one of the biological males “stared down” a female student in a “threatening manner” as if (she) was the one in the wrong restroom, causing (her) to fear for her safety.
The case reads, “Although Plaintiffs are hard-working, high achieving students, the school has discriminated against them and violated their privacy rights by allowing male students to dress as girls and use the girls’ multi-user private restrooms and locker rooms. In some situations, it has caused Plaintiffs and other biologically female students to be fearful, to stay away from the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, to hold their urine the entire day, and on at least one occasion cause one of the Plaintiffs significant embarrassments during her menstrual cycle because she was fearful of using the girls’ restroom.”
The lawsuit goes on to say, “The anxiety, embarrassment, and stress Plaintiffs (as females) feel as a direct result of Defendants’ practice and actions has caused them to refrain from using restrooms as much as possible, stress about when and if they can use a given restroom without running into a naked or exposed male person of the opposite sex, and opting to hold their bladder rather than using the school’s restroom. This has caused an ever-present distraction throughout the school day, including during class instructional time. In some cases, Plaintiffs have missed classes and school.”
The school district has claimed its policy is necessary to ensure a safe environment for transgender students and that if the girls had a problem changing or using restrooms with people of the opposite sex, they would give them permission to go to the principal’s office to change or urinate.
The plaintiffs in the case are being represented by attorney Matthew DePerno of DePerno Law Office, PLLC. DePerno unsuccessfully ran to be the Attorney General in November of 2022, losing to Jocelyn Benson by 8.6 percentage points and also lost his bid to be the chair of the Michigan Republican Party in February of this year to Kristina Karamo.
