DENVER (LifeSiteNews) — A group of Colorado parents are suing their kids’ school district after a gender-confused boy was placed not only in the same hotel room – but in the same bed with – a fifth-grade girl.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) have filed an opening brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on behalf of four Colorado families who are challenging Jefferson County Public Schools for “violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about the upbringing and education of their children.”
“The families are asking the court to stop school-district officials from requiring their children to share bedrooms and shower facilities with students of the opposite sex on school-sponsored overnight trips,” according to an ADF press release. “The district’s policy of rooming students by ‘gender identity’ rather than sex without prior notice or a sex-separated alternative violates the families’ free exercise, bodily privacy, and parental rights.”
Jefferson County Public Schools forced the 11-year-old daughter of Joe and Serena Wailes to share a room with a gender-confused male on an overnight trip to Washington, D.C., in 2023. The school district initially put the young female student in the same bed with the male student without letting her or her parents know about the true sex of the bedmate.
The school district told the girl not to talk about the gender-confused male’s actual sex and instead instructed her to keep quiet that the student was actually a boy. The parents of the gender-confused child wanted their son’s actual sex to remain in “stealth mode,” according to Principal Ryan Lucas.
Bret and Susanne Roller, who are also part of the parent group suing the school system, discovered after their young son’s school trip that the school district had assigned a female to share his cabin and monitor his showers.
“Parents, not government bureaucrats, have the right and responsibility to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and that includes making informed decisions to protect their children’s privacy,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, said in a statement.
“This fundamental right is especially vital for all parents who wish to raise their children according to their religious values and protect their children’s bodily privacy,” continued Anderson. “Jefferson County Public Schools claims to ‘freely grant accommodations to all,’ yet they will not offer equal accommodations to religious students to access educational opportunities without sacrificing their bodily privacy.”
The school district’s stated policy requires students to be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity” rather than according to their sex.
ADF explains:
The district tells parents that “girls will be roomed together on one floor, and boys will be roomed together on a different floor.” But officials fail to disclose that they have redefined the words “girl” and “boy” to mean a student’s self-asserted “gender identity” rather than sex.
The district refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy.
Jefferson County has a history of embracing transgenderism
The news of the district’s policy is not necessarily surprising given the district’s embrace of transgenderism and the LGBT agenda. It reportedly forced a teacher to undergo pro-LGBT “training” after he told a gender-confused student about “detransitioners” and refused to embrace gender ideology.
The district also works with an autism support services company that hosted a “drag story hour.”
The school district also does not believe parents must be informed when students start to claim that they are the opposite sex. “Prior to notification of any parent/guardian regarding the transition process, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree, if any, the parent/guardian will be involved in the process and must consider the health, well-being, and safety of the student in transition,” an official guide states.
The public school system has also been caught falsely claiming students were not dressing up as “furries,” or animals, at school.
One mom, a self-described Democrat, had emailed the school to complain about students who were wearing “collars” and “ears” and “tails” and were “hissing” and “barking.” The kids also walk on all fours and refer to themselves as “animal avengers,” as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.