Jessica Konen accused the Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County of socially transitioning her 11-year-old daughter Alicia, in a lawsuit encouraging the young girl to find out who she “truly was inside." Staff reportedly encouraged Alicia to use the boys’ restroom while at school.
The Center for American Liberty, the organization that legally represented Konen in her case against the school district, explained that Alicia’s social transition began when she was recruited to participate in Buena Vista Middle School’s “Equality Club.”
“[S]he was taught about bisexuality, transgender identities, and other LGBT concepts in just the sixth grade,” The Center for American Liberty wrote. “Shortly after joining the club, the school began to foster Alicia’s identification as a boy, giving her articles on how to conceal her supposed new gender identity from her mother and giving her a ‘Gender Support Plan’ that required school staff to refer to her by a male name and male pronouns and to let her use the unisex teachers’ restroom instead of the girl’s restroom—all without even informing Jessica what it was doing. >After several months, Konen became aware of her daughters social transition, and the unapologetic school staff responded by insisting that she refer to her daughter by male pronouns. Konen told Fox News, “They need to understand their place, and they need to stay in their place. And schools nowadays, they’re awful. So, I’m going to fight this fight and keep fighting this fight.”
“I am not going to allow this to keep happening to children,” Konen added. “I feel that the fight, it has to continue.”
The lawsuit claimed that “Ms. Caldeira and Ms. Baraki [Alicia’s teachers]: (1) instructed students that they should not tell their parents about their new gender identities; (2) purposefully failed to keep Equality Club rosters or records so that parents could not discover their children’s participation . . . and (3) held Equality Club meetings during lunch -as opposed to after school – so that students, who were too young to drive, did not have to ask their parents to pick them up.”
Konen, who is a single mother, experienced difficulties in her relationship with her daughter when she first learned of her adopted “identity;” however, she has said that since that time, they have made amends, and her daughter is now referring to herself as a girl once again.
Other parents in the state have sued school districts for privately transitioning young children without first speaking with the student’s parents; however this is the first notable settlement on behalf of a school district that will likely change the legal landscape moving forward.
After one mother sued Chino Valley School District in April, the board implemented a policy change requiring school staff to inform parents immediately if a child begins a social transition while at school. Following this district’s lead, the Murrieta Valley Unified School District voted 3-2 to adopt a similar policy.
At the time, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta threatened to take legal action against the districts which implimented the “outting” policies. In a press release following the policy announcement he stated, “Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members unaccepting of their gender identity.”
The AG has since announced a lawsuit filed against the Chino Valley School District, claiming that its policy, “wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students.”
