Place your precious, special snowflake in a public school, butt hurt soothed.
Via OC Register:
The parents of an 8-year-old transgender child are suing a Yorba Linda private school, saying their daughter was barred from using the girls’ restroom and was forced to wear a uniform for boys.
In their discrimination lawsuit filed Wednesday, Priya Shah and Jaspret Brar say Heritage Oak Private School advertised itself as “nondiscriminatory” but then refused to treat their daughter, Nicole (Nikki) Brar, in accordance with her gender identity.
The lawsuit says the school denied their daughter’s appeals to wear a girls’ uniform and rejected her requests to be called by the appropriate name and pronouns. The school also insisted that she use a staff restroom instead of the girls’ restroom and failed to address bullying in the classroom, according to the lawsuit.
The family is represented by Public Counsel, the largest pro bono public interest law firm in the country. In a statement through their attorney, the parents said their lawsuit is a fight for human dignity.
“We couldn’t stand to watch Nikki’s hopes and dreams be crushed because a group of adults didn’t accept her for who she is,” said her father, Jaspret Brar.
“I am forever in awe of the courage that it took for Nikki to stand up for who she is, despite all the messages she was getting from her school and from society,” said her mother Priya Shah. “Her courage to fight for her authentic self has galvanized my own.”
The suit also names the school’s Pennsylvania-based parent company, Nobel Learning Communities.
In a statement on Thursday, Kerry Owens, a spokeswoman for Nobel Learning, said transgender students in older grades have been accommodated at its schools without incident.
Owens said the school retained an outside consultant for help and was communicating with the family to discuss accommodations for Nikki.
“Unfortunately, these accommodations were rejected, and the parents withdrew their child,” she said.
Nikki was born as a boy, but as a small child began showing preferences for toys and activities associated with girls — a behavior that is typical of transgender children, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Nikki “preferred pink outfits and rainbow ponies,” and would wear her mother’s high-heeled shoes.
Just before her seventh birthday, she told her mother that she was a girl and had felt like a girl for a “long time,” according to the suit. Her parents supported her and found a therapist who specialized in gender identity for children.
The therapist “encouraged Nikki’s parents to let her buy girl’s clothes if that is what she was asking for,” the lawsuit says. “When Nikki was able to wear girl’s clothes, she was happier and liked the way she looked.”
The lawsuit says Nikki’s mother, who taught college courses in gender and transgender theory, was especially affected by her daughter’s transition because one of her students who identified as transgender later committed suicide.
“When Nikki came to Priya to tell her she was a girl, Priya thought of the student she had lost and affirmed to herself that she would keep her own child safe and supported.”
Her parents decided to enroll her at Heritage Oak, a secular school, for the 2016-2017 school year because they believed it would be academically challenging.
HT: Kat