Parents threaten to sue district for exposing kids to transgender teacher, testing SCOTUS rulings

The Supreme Court twice reaffirmed parental rights in public education in the past 15 months, requiring school districts to notify parents before exposing their children to lessons on gender and sexuality and treating their children as the opposite sex, and to let them opt out.

Parents in North Carolina's Wake County are seeking to push the conventionally understood boundaries of the Mahmoud and Mirabelli precedents even further, demanding the school board opt out their elementary-age children from any classes taught by a cross-dressing male teacher and ensure they don't share any intimate facility with the teacher.

The Thomas More Society said it will sue Wake County Public School System by month's end if it doesn't agree in writing to the parents' demands, which include no punishment for addressing the music teacher with male pronouns and titles and no retaliation by employees against children for opt-outs or treating the teacher as a man.

In line with the recent SCOTUS precedents, the legal warning letter also demands assurances that "sexuality and gender identity will not be discussed" by any faculty or staff at the school, whether curricular or "informal class discussions," without parental notice and opt-out.

"Issues of gender and sexuality have unsurprisingly already arisen in this specific teacher’s class," the letter says without identifying the teacher, who has been widely identified by conservative activists and media. 

Local newspaper The News & Observer will not identify the Middle Creek Elementary School teacher but acknowledged "others have posted the educator’s name and photo online," without contesting the accuracy of the identification. 

The parents organized as the unincorporated association Middle Creek Parental Rights, according to the warning letter, which redacts the names of members with children at Middle Creek Elementary.

"Other parents who are members of MCPR also hereby seek relief, but they are concerned about the dangers of doxxing," given that other members have already been doxxed, "including, we believe, from someone who often works for WCPSS," the letter says. The district has given them "no assurances [...] about their safety or the safety of their children at school."

The News & Observer reported Monday that the issue has dominated school board meetings for the past several weeks, with speakers both in favor and opposed to the teacher, but that the district hasn't confirmed whether it has rejected opt-out requests from parents. 

A fourth-grader identified as Alana spoke against the teacher at the Sept. 1 school board meeting, reading from a statement. 

"If I had a teacher that was born a man, wears a dress and makeup, that would make me feel weird because it would also make other kids maybe dress up and be something they aren't," Alana said. "A man teacher [that] dress[es] as a woman and acts like a woman scares me. Please protect me and other kids."

Another speaker at a school board meeting, mentioned in the warning letter, called for expelling the children of the "bigots" who want an opt-out. The News & Observer identified that speaker as grandparent Katerina Day.

The district's "assignment to classes" policy gives principals discretion to "balance any individual request for assignment or reassignment within the school against the welfare of other students and the efficient operation of the school." The problem, according to the News & Observer, is Middle Creek Elementary has only one music teacher.

The teacher identified by conservative activists and media is not listed on Middle Creek Elementary's teacher contact page as of Thursday, and Just the News has been unable to find an older version. It lists one music teacher, a different person.

Teacher allegedly "pinky swore" to being a "girl" with female student

GOP state Rep. Erin Paré first disclosed the issue July 28, saying "one of our local elementary schools" had hired a "transgender biological male, who dresses as a woman," as a music teacher, citing phone calls and emails from constituents. She didn't identify the teacher.

"May be time to introduce a bill requiring gender-appropriate professional attire for public school employees, as [Wake County Public School System] does not have a policy addressing this issue – as far as I can tell," Paré said. She has called her Democratic opponent in her November reelection bid, Winn Decker, a "Transgender activist," apparently describing the self-identified gay man's politics. 

The recipients of the Thomas More Society's letter – the district and regional superintendents, principal and school board chair – have not responded to queries.

Just the News has not been able to independently verify the name of the teacher.

Trying to preempt another misleading "Don't Say Gay" framing of the issue by the media, as happened to Florida's law that simply restricts discussions about sexuality and gender identity for younger students, the Thomas More Society said it wasn't trying to get the teacher fired "or otherwise adversely affected."

The warning letter says the district can't fall back on the Supreme Court's Bostock decision on transgender employment rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which are "not a license to ignore the constitutional rights of parents in the education and upbringing of their children."

It says the district hired the teacher this summer, but this person "interviewed while presenting as a biological male and may also have claimed to be non-binary during the selection process." Parents didn't learn until the school year started that "the music teacher is a biological male who now presents as a transgender woman."

Using the logic of the Mahmoud and Mirabelli precedents, which relied on parents' First Amendment right to direct the religious upbringing of their children against government interference, the letter says the "many" families at Middle Creek Elementary with "traditional Christian beliefs" are being coerced to give up their right to public education.

Administrators have "reserved the right to discipline students who refuse to use female pronouns and courtesy titles for this teacher, and in fact one parent’s child was corrected in front of the class" on Aug. 6 for calling the teacher "mister." Parents also learned the teacher "recently 'pinky swore' that she was a 'girl' during discussions with a female student," the warning letter also reads.

The presence of the teacher itself "will be used to justify engaging in instruction on transgenderism, sexual identity, and other topics that are inappropriate for elementary-aged children and that conflict with their religious beliefs," also according to the letter.

Yet administrators have "uniformly denied" requests to opt out their children from the teacher's music class "in favor of another class or academic exercise for their students," telling them that parental removals "will constitute an unexcused absence."