Parent Sues School Over Transgender Brainwashing
Parent Sues School Over Transgender Brainwashing
Proselytizing California groomers are running wild.
By Matthew Vadum
California parent Jessica Konen is suing her local school district for secretly indoctrinating her 6th grade daughter into the cult of transgenderism, convincing her to change her gender identity, all while urging her not to discuss the situation with her mother because she could not be “trusted.”
The behavior of these woke teachers matters not only because parents – as opposed to the government – are supposed to be in charge of raising their own children, but also because transgenderism is a treacherous ideology that threatens the very underpinnings of both our society and Western civilization as a whole.
It is not about homosexuality or bisexuality, which Americans have become increasingly tolerant of in recent years. Many Americans are even supportive of transgender people when they are consenting adults, but they do not support groomers’ efforts to force impressionable children to renounce their birth sex and pretend to be something they are not. The rise of groups such as Gays Against Groomers, whose members are aghast at reports of little kids being forced to attend drag queen performances, shows that plenty of gays recognize it is wrong to push transgender ideology onto children.
It is about totalitarian thought control. The advocates of transgenderism, backed by the Biden-Harris regime, would force Americans to recognize an individual’s professed gender identity even if it doesn’t match the person’s birth sex. Forcing people to say things they know aren’t true is the essence of totalitarianism.
As I have written before, just about no one cared about the previously minuscule number of consenting adults having sex-reassignment surgery or hormone therapy until the Left started to demand that people think of these things as normal and forced these beliefs on children.
The Left doesn’t care about how many victims it creates, even as it breaks the fragile bodies of young people who lack the maturity to make informed decisions – decisions that will come back to haunt them in their later years.
Advocated by these radicals, puberty blockers, which can harm young people, are being prescribed for children who are now, because of incessant propaganda, reporting discomfort with their sex in record numbers. Long-term use of these drugs adversely affects brain development, bone density, and fertility but more and more medical doctors are violating the Hippocratic Oath by supporting their use on gender-confused young people.
Which brings us to the case of Jessica Konen, whose young daughter was pressured to join the destructive cult.
Konen is suing with the assistance of the Center For American Liberty, a nonprofit that, according to its website, is “fighting against growing anti-free speech and anti-civil liberties trends.” The legal complaint (pdf) in the case was filed June 14 in the Monterey County office of the Superior Court of California.
San Francisco-based attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon is spearheading the legal effort. Dhillon is CEO of the Center For American Liberty.
Parents have “the right to know what is going on in their child’s school,” Dhillon told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” as she explained how teachers pushed the young girl to join an “Equality Club” aimed at convincing students to embrace new gender identities.
“They invited kids, including Jessica’s daughter, to be in this club, and they told these kids, do not tell your parents, and specifically Jessica’s mom, do not tell them, they cannot be trusted,” she said.
“They gave them reading materials about transgenderism. They secretly changed the pronouns, but when in front of the parents, referred to their children by their birth pronouns. Behind the parents’ back, in the school, [they] used their new identity. All this was done secretly.”
According to the legal complaint, the Spreckels Union School District near San Jose adopted a “parental secrecy policy” that “authorizes minor children to make mature, consequential, and potentially life-altering decisions — such as what gender to identify as; how to express their gender identity, including, but not limited to, females binding their breasts so they look more like males; what name to be called; what pronouns to use; and what privacy facilities to use — with no notification to or input from parents.”
Teachers at Buena Vista Middle School in the school district took Konen’s daughter, A.G., 11 at the time, and recruited her into an “Equality Club” in which she was advised that she may be transgender and bisexual, two concepts that were not familiar to her. At one point teachers changed the name of the club to UBU, or “You Be You,” to avoid detection by parents. A.G. attended Buena Vista from fall 2018 to spring 2021 for the 6th through 8th grades.
A.G. attended a club meeting at the suggestion of a friend after 6th grade instruction began. The girl was not interested in the discussion and decided not to attend future club meetings. But two weeks later a teacher asked her to return to the club, telling her she “fit in perfectly.” A.G. began attending the meetings again. Teachers told her at first that she was bisexual even though she did not understand the concept of bisexuality. Not long after, teachers told the girl she was transgender even though she did not grasp the concept, the legal complaint stated.
Teachers were persistent as they encouraged the child to change her name to a masculine name and present as male in order to express the new identity. Despite the emotional trauma they inflicted on the young girl, the teachers told her not to let her mother know about this because her mother supposedly could not be “trusted.”
They also forced A.G. to read articles about how to conceal her newly discovered transgender status from her mother. The teachers created a “Gender Support Plan” that directed faculty to call the daughter by a new name, male pronouns, and to allow her to use the unisex teachers’ restroom.
The California Department of Education officially encourages young children to embrace transgender identities. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court had held that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, it is the department’s position that schools ought to keep secrets from parents; its recommended reading list promotes books for kindergartners about students undergoing gender identity transition.
During the brainwashing process, A.G. took on a new gender identity different from her female sex at birth, as well as a boy’s name and masculine pronouns, according to the legal complaint.
A.G.’s original identity went down the memory hole as teachers began referring to her by her new name and pronouns. Her name was changed in educational records and she was allowed to use the teachers’ unisex bathroom, all without informing her mother.
The school deliberately deceived Konen about her child’s assumed gender identity by using the girl’s birth name and feminine pronouns when the mother was present. When Konen was not present, the teachers resumed calling the girl by a boy’s name and using masculine pronouns.
Teachers told A.G. not to tell “her mother about her new gender identity, and by otherwise concealing facts regarding A.G.’s new gender identity from Ms. Konen.”
Konen had said she “supports her daughter, regardless of the decisions she makes. Ms. Konen simply wants to be a part of her daughter’s life and exercise her rights as a parent to direct the upbringing of her child.”
But the teachers deprived Konen of her parental rights during a crucial phase of her daughter’s development by “choosing for themselves how to direct A.G.’s upbringing regarding the major life decision of A.G.’s gender identity, and concealing critical facts from Ms. Konen, her parent.”
The teachers’ actions “also violated Ms. Konen’s and A.G.’s rights under federal and state law and inflicted serious emotional and mental harm upon them.”
This case is not an outlier.
As California and federal officials continue to advocate for transgenderism, more such lawsuits are coming.
Count on it.