Supreme Court stops anti-trans parents in their tracks
May 24, 2024The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case from three Maryland parents who accused the Montgomery County School District of assisting transgender students in transitioning without parental knowledge.
According to ‘LGBTQ Nation’, the court ruled that the parents lacked legal standing to challenge the district’s pro-trans policies because these policies did not directly affect their own children. Consequently, the policies will remain in place as the Republican-leaning high court postpones a ruling on the broader constitutionality of such policies.
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The parents sued over district guidelines introduced in 2020, which allow schools to create support plans for transgender students while “respect[ing] the students’ wishes to keep certain information confidential” from their parents. The parents argued that the guidelines are “expressly designed to circumvent parental involvement in a pivotal decision affecting [their children’s] care, health education, and future,” as reported by The Washington Times. They also contended that the policy permits children “to transition socially to a different gender identity at school without parental notice or consent.”
Moreover, the parents claimed that the district’s guidelines violate the Maryland Declaration of Rights provision that permits adults to “direct the care, custody, education, welfare, safety, and control of their minor children,” as well as the U.S.A. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees due legal process for all citizens.
Although the district policy allows students to use the pronouns and gendered facilities of their choice, it does not authorise schools to provide any gender-affirming medical or mental health care.
Mark Eckstein, chair of the Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations’ LGBTQ+ subcommittee, mentioned that some parents oppose the guidelines due to the lack of substantial case law on the subject, Bethesda Magazine reported. “The ideal situation is to get the parents and child together and get everyone on the same page, but when that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, it creates conflict,” Eckstein told the magazine. “But you do have a lot of instances where a child is out at school, but not at home. It’s not easy whatever way you cut it. Even if everyone is at their best, it’s a complicated situation.”
This is not the first time the district has faced legal challenges from conservative parents.
In mid-May, a federal appeals court ruled that religious parents in the district cannot opt their children out of classroom lessons involving LGBTQ+-inclusive books. Three sets of parents – who are Muslim, Jewish, and Christian – sued the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), arguing that the books “contradict their sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, human sexuality, and gender.” The parents claimed that requiring their children to attend lessons on these books violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.
The three-member appeals court panel upheld a lower court decision, stating that the parents failed to demonstrate how the books would be used in the lessons. The parents were represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an anti-LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organisation that has vowed to appeal the court’s decision.
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