A suburban Chicago public school district has told a federal judge it believes parents are not to be considered the best decision makers for their children, if the parents do not fully support their children’s gender identity.
Further, the school district argues school districts are empowered – and even required – by state law to withhold information about children from their parents, if the school district believes it is in the best interests of a child who identifies as gay or transgender.
Attorneys for Villa Park Illinois School District 45 filed a brief in Chicago federal court last month, in further support of their prior motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the father of a District 45 student, who allegedly identifies as transgender.
Nikoleta Lamprinakos
| Robbins Schwarz
The lawsuit was filed in April by plaintiff Bryan Vesely, of Florida. Vesely is the parent of a student identified in court documents only as A.V., a 12-year-old, sixth grade student at Jackson Middle School in Villa Park.
In the lawsuit, Vesely accuses District 45 of conspiring with his ex-wife to trample his parental rights by encouraging their child to transition gender from male to female, without consulting the father and against his wishes.
Vesely asserts the school district’s actions violated his constitutional rights to “direct the upbringing and education” of his child, rights granted under both the U.S. Constitution and Illinois state constitution.
Vesely is seeking a court order forbidding District 45 staff from referring to students “using a name or pronouns at odds with their biological sex, while at school, without parental consent.”
Vesely is further seeking a court order requiring District 45 and his ex-wife to pay him money damages of at least $75,000, plus unspecified punitive damages, for allegedly engaging in conspiracy to violate his constitutional parental rights.
In response, both the school district and his ex-wife have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
According to court documents, his ex-wife claims their custody arrangement from their divorce does not give Vesely the legal standing to sue over their child’s gender expression.
In a motion filed earlier this summer, the school district has also asked the court to end Vesely’s lawsuit. The district asserted Vesely’s rights as a parent do not supersede either the privacy rights of the student to be free to express their gender as they wish, or the school district’s responsibility under state and federal law to respect that gender expression choice.
Further, the school district claimed Vesely’s rights as a parent do not compel the district to share even with him “private gender records” for the student.
In a new filing, the school district went further still in its arguments against Vesely’s lawsuit, saying his parental rights are all but eviscerated if he disagrees with his child's gender transition and expression.
District 45 says the law and prior court decisions on the questions underlying Vesely’s lawsuit indicate the courts have expressed a “willingness to restrict parental rights in order to protect the wellbeing of a child” while protecting “the privacy rights of transgender individuals.”
The school district asserts Illinois state law goes “beyond federal constitutional guarantees by expressly recognizing a zone of personal privacy.”
State law, the district said, “clearly demonstrates that when parents are unsupportive of their children’s mental health and gender identity, they are not the best person to make decisions regarding the same by limiting the mental health treatment parents can impose on their gay and transgender children.”
They asserted the law known as the Youth Mental Health Protection Act isn’t simply to “protect transgender youth from … conversion therapy.”
Rather, Vesely “misses the general idea that the Act limits parental rights to control the upbringing of their transgender children in order to protect the fragile mental health and well-being of our transgender youth,” the school district said.
“Asking the District to do anything other than affirm A.V.’s new gender identity, is essentially asking the District to refuse to recognize A.V. by their gender identity, ban A.V. from wearing dresses and nail polish and dead name A.V. All of these fall under conversion efforts to change A.V.’s behaviors and force her to present as a boy, for which she is not,” District 45 wrote.
Vesely has not yet responded to the latest arguments from the school district.
District 45 is represented in the case by attorney Nikoleta Lamprinakos, of the firm of Robbins Schwartz Nicholas Lifton & Taylor, of Chicago.
Vesely is represented by attorneys Dean J. Tatooles and Mason S. Coles, of the firm of Cole Sadkin, of Chicago.