Parents sue Colorado school for secretly facilitating daughter’s gender transition 

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CNA Staff, Aug 14, 2024 / 14:36 pm (CNA).

Colorado parents and their daughter sued the state of Colorado last week over a law that enabled a high school to encourage their daughter’s gender transition without their knowledge or consent. 

A school counselor at Brighton High School in the Denver suburbs secretly connected the 14-year-old girl with a transgender therapist who recommended life-altering treatment including hormone treatment and breast-removal surgery.

The parents are combating the policies that enabled the school to keep this information from them. Colorado’s Name Change Law, effective in April, requires schools to use the preferred name and pronouns of gender-confused students. In addition, a 2021 school district policy, the Parental Exclusion Policy, prevents schools from notifying parents about social transition without the student’s consent. 

In the Aug. 7 complaint, the parents, known as John and Jane Doe, say their daughter, “A.D.,” a 14-year-old freshman in high school, was struggling with anxiety and depression when she asked a counselor at Brighton High School for help transitioning to a male identity. 

The school concealed the social transition from the Does, referring to their daughter by her female name with parents while calling her by her preferred male name at school, the complaint alleges.

The counselor connected the daughter with a transgender therapist in Colorado’s online telemedicine portal I Matter. That therapist discussed hormone treatment and a mastectomy with the daughter without the parents’ knowledge on the counselor’s computer. 

The counselor informed the parents that their daughter was struggling with her mental health but referred to her as a girl and did not mention that the school was socially transitioning her.  

The parents began to suspect that the school was socially transitioning their daughter by the spring of her freshman year.

Their daughter, after seeing a therapist, has since recognized “that changing who she is was not the answer,” the complaint noted.

“Social transitioning is a powerful form of psychological treatment,” the complaint notes, arguing that in minors it “may only be done under the watchful supervision of a trained mental health professional and with close parental involvement at every step of the way.”

The daughter now “regrets wanting to transition” and believes that the school’s affirmation in part helped perpetuate her transgender identity.

“School districts across Colorado are facilitating major psychological treatment for children without their parents’ knowledge or consent,” the parents’ lawyer, Eric Sell, said in a post on X. 

“This dangerous practice risks greater rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality later in life for these kids. Parents, not schools, should be making these important decisions,” the lawyer said. 

Conservative nonprofit Center for American Liberty and Denver-based Gessler Blue law firm are representing the parents in court.  

“Parents have a fundamental right under the 14th Amendment to direct the upbringing of their kids,” the Center for American Liberty’s Aug. 7 press release noted. “At a bare minimum, that includes being made aware of life-changing decisions being made at school.”

The firms request that the court declare the Name Change Law and the Parental Exclusion Policy invalid and prevent the school from implementing them during the pending lawsuit and in the future.