Alliance Defending Freedom announced its attorneys have filed an opening brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of Jennifer Vitsaxaki, a New York mother who is contesting the Skaneateles Central School District’s handling of her daughter’s gender identification.
Vitsaxaki found in the spring of 2021 that, in accordance with district policy, school workers were treating her daughter as a boy without her knowledge or agreement. This “social transition” entailed giving her daughter a masculine name and using third-person plural pronouns, activities that Vitsaxaki was unaware of despite her inquiry about any alterations.
ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson stated:
Parents have the right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children without government meddling. When schools cut parents out of weighty decisions about their own kids, they betray that trust. That’s what happened here.
Vitsaxaki withdrew her daughter from the district and enrolled her in a private school after the district continued the social transition against her wishes. The lawsuit claims that the district’s actions violate Vitsaxaki’s parental rights and religious beliefs. A lower court dismissed the case, prompting the current appeal.
The brief states:
The district court got it wrong at nearly every step. A school district cannot socially transition a 12-year-old girl without her parents’ knowledge or consent. And it especially can’t do so and actively conceal its actions. Yet the School District here did all three based on official policy. That violated Mrs. Vitsaxaki’s fundamental right to direct her daughter’s upbringing, education, and healthcare.