(LifeSiteNews) — Another indoctrinator is being sued by furious parents who discovered — like so many other parents — that many teachers today are actually evangelists for the LGBT movement, bent on winning converts to their cause. This time, it is Debra Rosenquist, a fifth-grade teacher at Terryville Road Elementary School in Port Jefferson Station, a hamlet on New York’s Long Island.
According to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Court, the parents received a phone call from the principal in January 2022 telling them that their 9-year-old daughter — referred to as A.V. — was troubled and had sketched a drawing of a girl and written “I feel sad like a lot” and “I wanna kill myself.” According to the principal, the school psychologist had concluded that she “was confused about her gender identity.”
During the call, the principal asked the parents if their daughter could be referred to by male pronouns and the name “Leo.” The parents responded by saying that they were willing to extend permission so long as their daughter was the one explicitly requesting the name change, but that they doubted she would because “Leo” was merely a nickname one of her friends had used, referring to the girl’s astrological sign.
According to the court documents, however, the parents soon discovered that Rosenquist had not waited for permission or discussion to begins socially transitioning their daughter. As it turned out, she had begun calling the little girl “Leo” and using male pronouns at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, and had been doing so for months without their knowledge by the time they received a phone call from the principal.
One of the girl’s parents had a meeting with the superintendent, assistant superintendent, and principal on February 3, 2022 to voice concern. The lawsuit states that the school administrators “admitted that the issue was ‘not handled properly’” and notes that the school’s response to their daughter being socially transitioned without their knowledge resulted in an investigation that “was superficial at best” and that as a result they “were incredibly concerned about the well-being of their 9-year-old daughter.”
Upon further investigation, the parents found other complaints about Rosenquist on social media that indicated the teacher had previously been reported by other parents but that nothing had been done and that she had taught her students gender ideology, advised them to “try being gay,” and told them to experiment with identifying as another gender.
Additionally, Rosenquist went beyond the already radical curriculum (this is New York state) by creating a book of her own promoting LGBT ideology such as I Am Neither. The parents have emphasized in their lawsuit that it is not LGBT ideology that troubles them so much as the fact that Rosenquist is teaching 9- and 10-year-olds and “had significantly deviated from the district’s curriculum.”
As a result, the parents’ lawsuit — which is asking unspecified damages, including psychological treatment for their daughter as well as lawyer fees — accuses the school of “failing to properly monitor Rosenquist’s classroom and train and supervise staff.” Further, the parents — who are liberal in their view of LGBT ideology — stated that they support whatever choices their daughter would like to make but that “A.V. was being persuaded by Rosenquist to be transgender when she had not expressed any such inclination.”
Rosenquist’s actions have resulted in the little girl being bullied, with other students joking about her gender confusion, resulting in “humiliation,” “emotional pain,” “anxiety,” and “trauma.” As a result, she felt suicidal.
According to the parents’ lawyer, Debra Wabnik, the teacher had “manipulated a pre-teen female into changing her gender identity when the child did not feel any inclination to do so” and that “the psychological and social damage Rosenquist caused this child and her family was immense … incredibly, the district still has Rosenquist in the classroom where she can similarly harm other innocent children.” Wabnik rejected outright claims that the girl had identified as transgender, stating, “The notion that she identified as male was foisted upon her by Rosenquist.”
In an anemic response, Comsewogue School District Superintendent Jennifer Quinn stated that the district “fosters a caring atmosphere conducive to learning free of any behaviors violative of our goal of dignity for all students.”
