Two Colorado parents are suing in federal court over their daughter’s hidden social gender transition, claiming a school district outside of Denver and a state therapist secretly encouraged her to use male pronouns and offered her transgender-related telemedicine services for months.

The lawsuit presents a clash between a state anti-discrimination law and parental rights, as the parents argue that the 14th Amendment protects the “fundamental rights of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children,” including the right to notification and consent when the government makes important decisions and offers healthcare services.

The legal group representing the parents, the Center for American Liberty, says the issue is one that extends far beyond the Colorado lawsuit. 

“Unfortunately, this deliberate deception on the part of schools is becoming more common across the country,” the group said in a statement. “School districts and states are implementing policies and laws that aim to remove parents from critical decisions in their kids’ lives.” 

The Colorado parents, identified as Jane and John Doe out of fear of retaliation, are challenging the state’s recently enacted name change law, House Bill 24-1039, which requires public schools and charter schools to use a student’s preferred name — without requiring official name or gender change records or parental consent. The law states that refusing to use a student’s preferred name is discrimination. 

“Sadly, the state of Colorado and public schools across the state have erected barriers between these children and their parents—the very people who love and support them—leading to more isolation and harm,” the lawsuit, filed last week in the Federal District Court for the District of Colorado, notes. It argues that under the state law — and individual school policies that require employees not to disclose name changes to parents — schools are socially transitioning children “either over their parents’ objection or while their parents are kept in the dark.”

Attorneys for the Colorado parents say that when the 14-year-old student, identified as A.D., asked for help from a school counselor, the counselor “assisted A.D. with the transition” and began using a male name and pronouns at school. Yet, it alleges that when speaking to the parents, the school “concealed the transition,” referring to their daughter by her female name and pronouns. The school also did not inform the parents that it connected its student to a state of Colorado telemedicine portal to meet with a therapist to assist with the transition, the filing claims. 

To conceal the virtual therapy sessions from the parents, the school counselor allowed the student to use the counselor’s computer and office, the filing notes. The therapist, who is transgender, would tell the student that “you are a boy,” the lawsuit says, and also “discussed taking testosterone and having a mastectomy as the next steps in A.D.’s transition.”

Colorado’s education department and the state attorney general’s office, both named in the lawsuit, declined to comment when reached by the Sun, citing pending litigation. The named school district, 27J Schools, did not respond to a request for comment. 

The district’s LGBTQ+ toolkit directs employees not to “out students to anyone.” 

“Coming out to family, peers, etc. should be decided upon by the student,” the guidelines read. “If the student does not have supportive parents/guardians this could put the student at risk.”

The lawsuit indicates that the parents arranged for a private counselor and encouraged their daughter to not make “irreversible decisions,” and that she eventually said she “no longer identified as a boy and wishes to live life as a girl.” Yet, the lawsuit claims that the immense “pressure to socially transition” at the school district could lead her to change her mind at any time, and that the parents are “likely to be harmed in the future” by the state name change law and the district’s parental exclusion policies.