Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of the parents of three children in Colorado. The lawsuit involves elementary school children who, with the permission of their parents, went on overnight field trips arranged by the school. The Jefferson County Public Schools district told parents that girls would stay on one floor of a hotel while boys were on another. But the students and their parents discovered too late that wasn't the case.

For school trips, JeffCo tells parents that “girls will be roomed together on one floor and boys will be roomed together on a different floor.” But what JeffCo fails to mention is that they have redefined the words “girl” and “boy” to mean a student’s asserted gender identity rather than sex.

When Joe and Serena Wailes allowed their eleven-year-old daughter to attend the JeffCo-sponsored Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. trip, they were told their daughter would be rooming with three other fifth-grade girls. It wasn’t until their daughter, D.W., was in her room getting ready for bed on the first night of the trip that she found out she was to share a bed with a boy who identified as a girl.

The complaint goes on to explain how D.W. found out her bedmate was a boy:

Mr. and Mrs. Wailes had given D.W. a phone to use for the week since she did not have one, so D.W. showed the stock background on her phone.

The student from the other school showed D.W. the background on the student’s phone, a Pride flag, and shared that the student was born a boy and identifies as transgender.

The 11-year-old went into the bathroom and made a whispered call to her mother who agreed to meet her in the lobby. Eventually a teacher and the principal got involved and they persuaded D.W. to stay in the room but in a different bed. D.W., who had been traveling and sightseeing for 16 hours was exhausted and agreed. However, the plan was to lie about why she was switching beds.

JeffCo chaperones, following JeffCo’s Transgender Students Policy, decided to lie to D.W.’s roommates and instructed D.W. to do the same, saying D.W. needed to switch beds to be closer to the air conditioner.

But once the chaperone and D.W. were back in the room with the other three students, D.W. was again placed into a difficult position when another girl offered to let the male student also switch to the bed near the air conditioner so that student could remain in the bed with D.W.

D.W. felt the panic begin to rise inside her. Mrs. Wailes had been trying to let D.W. advocate for herself, but at that moment, D.W. went into the hall where Mrs. Wailes was waiting and made eye contact with a look of desperation.

D.W. was scared to speak up in front of the other students on such a contentious subject. She was scared to say anything in front of her peers.

The girl was not comfortable sleeping in the room with a boy so her mom stepped in and asked that she be moved to a different room entirely. The chaperones agreed but once again they lied about why.

Throughout the evening, JeffCo employees always prioritized the male student’s privacy and feelings over D.W.’s.

This was not the only such incident like this.

When Bret and Susanne Roller sent their 11-year-old son, B.R., on JeffCo’s annual sixth-grade camping trip called Outdoor Lab, which is built into the sixth-grade science program, they were also told their son would be in a cabin with six to thirty other boys. They were told the camp counselors would include three male high school counselors and one male college counselor.

It wasn’t until B.R. was in the mountains, away from home for the first time, and with no form of communication, that he realized JeffCo had lied. One of his high school counselors—one that had been “female-identifying” the week before—was not male but was a “male-identifying” girl. B.R. soon found out that this girl was not just sleeping and changing in the same cabin but was also tasked by JeffCo to supervise the boys’ showers, including his...

B.R. was very uncomfortable, as were the other boys in the cabin. 

Many boys changed while lying down inside their sleeping bags to avoid changing in front of a female student who was seven years older than they were. 

In case that wasn't clear, this person had identified as female a week earlier. The announcement of their trans identity apparently happened days before the camp. 

The third set of parents who are part of the lawsuit have a daughter they would like to send on a similar overnight school trip but they are hesitant to do so after hearing about what happened to the Wailes and Roller families.

None of these incidents were a mistake. The district was following their explicit policy and has apparently said it will continue to do so. It refuses to even alert parents that this policy exists and that pre-teens sharing rooms with members of the opposite sex is a possibility.

JeffCo has said it will continue to assign students to hotel rooms, cabins, and other overnight accommodations by gender identity as it has been. The school district also refused to provide an accommodation for students attending trips such as Outdoor Lab if they are uncomfortable or it violates their religious beliefs to stay in an intimate setting with a student of the opposite sex. And JeffCo has said that it will not agree to notify parents, or students, in advance that this is district policy, thereby preventing parents from making informed decisions for their children.

The lawsuit was filed yesterday so it could be some time before we get a resolution in this case.