EXCLUSIVE — A high school senior is suing Fairfax County Public Schools for its policy forcing girls to share restrooms and locker rooms with biologically male students who identify as transgender.
The lawsuit was filed Monday afternoon by America First Legal on behalf of a female student who is arguing that the school district is violating her safety and religious liberty with a policy that allows biological males in the girls’ restroom and compels her to use “preferred pronouns” that “forces her to lie” about the biological reality of sex, according to the complaint.
“Fairfax County Public Schools appears to believe that its policies and regulations can override the Virginia Constitution’s protections for religious beliefs, speech, and from government discrimination on the basis of sex and religious beliefs,” Ian Prior, America First Legal’s senior adviser, told the Washington Examiner. “It is well past time for FCPS to stop sacrificing the constitutional rights of its students so that it can implement a state-sanctioned ideology that demands compliance in speech, beliefs, and conduct.”
The high school senior, who is referred to anonymously in the filing, is a Catholic who has been attending Fairfax County Public Schools since the third grade.
Since the school district adopted the first iteration of guidance for students claiming transgender identity in October 2020, called “Gender-Expansive and Transgender Students,” and since it subsequently adopted a superseding regulation in April 2022, she has been forced to deal with the demands of transgender-identifying students above her own religious and ethical code, the filing stated.
The regulation “elevates the interests of ‘gender-expansive’ and ‘transgender’ students at the expense of all others,” the lawsuit reads, adding it “puts the burden of accommodation on biological females who want to use the appropriate restroom or locker room.”
That is because the policy requires students who do not wish to share restrooms with students of the opposite biological sex to find their own separate facilities rather than requiring the student claiming transgender identity to do so.
Arguing the school district requirement discriminates against the high school senior on the basis of sex, the filing noted that “it permits a biological male to feel safe and comfortable by having full access to any restroom of his choice while not allowing the Petitioner to feel safe and comfortable by using the restroom of her biological sex.”
As the Washington Examiner reported, FCPS openly defied transgender student policies written by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) office, which had sought to solve both the facilities and pronoun dilemmas by highlighting parental rights and requiring students to use the facilities of their biological sex.
In addition to the restroom problems, the lawsuit indicated the petitioner is being compelled by the government to make statements about the nature of sex that are untrue by forcing her to both use other students’ “preferred pronouns” and to sign a copy of the “Students Rights and Responsibilities” form affirming that some students can have genders that do not align with their biological sex.
The high school senior believes, according to the lawsuit, “that to acknowledge or endorse that sex can be altered is to speak against God and her sincerely held religious and philosophical beliefs” and that using alternative pronouns is harmful “because it is untrue” and “forces her to lie.”
All students in Fairfax County Public Schools are required to take a test and sign the “Student Rights and Responsibilities” form, on which, for example, questions force students to answer in the affirmative that “a student has the right to be called by their chosen name and pronoun.”
The petitioner’s mother emailed the school principal stating the student would not be taking the exam or signing the form due to its “‘compelled speech’ on ‘gender identity,’ among other topics, which were contrary to their religious beliefs and family values,” the filing stated, but she was told by another Fairfax County Public Schools employee that there was no ability to opt out.
“Unfortunately, FCPS has repeatedly demonstrated that it will not voluntarily comply with the Virginia constitution and the Virginia Supreme Court’s rulings, so it will be up to students and parents to enforce their rights through the courts,” Prior said.
FCPS did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
