Conservative groups sue Berks school district over transgender student

[Heddi]

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/Religious-groups-sue-school-district-over-transgender-student.html

The Boyertown Area School District was sued Tuesday by a high school student and his parents who say his “bodily privacy” was violated when he saw a transgender student -- identified as female in the filing -- undressing in the locker room as he also was changing.

Two conservative faith-based organizations, Alliance Defending Freedom and Independence Law Center, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It claims the Berks County school district did not notify parents or students that it was allowing transgender students at Boyertown Area High School to use restrooms and locker rooms matching their chosen gender identity. Rather, the suit charges, the district “secretly opened” its sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex.

According to the filing, the student complained to school officials, who informed him that students who “subjectively identify themselves as the opposite sex” can choose which locker room they use. When the student twice asked school officials to protect his privacy, he was told he must “tolerate” it and make changing with students of the opposite sex as “natural” as can be, the suit said.


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Last month, a federal judge ruled in favor of three Pennsylvania transgender students who sued their school district over a bathroom-choice policy they say violated their civil rights.

The ruling granted a preliminary injunction to the students at Pine-Richland School District near Pittsburgh and effectively ensured they will be able to use the bathroom corresponding with their chosen gender identity as their case proceeds through the courts.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has filed other lawsuits that it says protect religious liberty, including issues of abortion rights and gay marriage. The group, whose website says it was founded in 1994 by 30 Christian leaders to defend religious liberty before it was "too late," was recently added to the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups. Its leaders and affiliated lawyers, the center said, have “regularly demonized LGBT people, falsely linking them to pedophilia, calling them ‘evil’ and a threat to children and society, and blaming them for the ‘persecution of devout Christians.' "

The Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center says it defends human life at all stages and the right to freely exercise religion.