Federal complaints lodged against Chicago, Deerfield for accommodating trans students

Trans advocates are pushing back against a north suburban mom who says her 13-year-old daughter was forced to change in front of a transgender classmate.

The controversy at a middle school in the North Shore community of Deerfield comes at the same time as a federal complaint has been lodged against Chicago Public Schools and the state board of education for allegedly “forcing students” to share bathrooms and locker rooms with transgender classmates.

Nicole Georgas told Deerfield District 109 School Board members at a meeting last week that officials at Shepard Middle School were “allowing biological males to access girls’ locker rooms.” She said the practice “sets a dangerous precedent” and runs afoul of a February executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

“This nightmare began on February 5 when my daughter was using the girls’ bathroom and was stunned that a biological male student was using it as well,” Georgas told the Deerfield School District 109 School Board last week.

Georgas, who did not respond to WBEZ’s request for comment, told board members this continued the rest of the week despite her objections to school officials.

“My daughter refused to take part in having her privacy being violated. How dare they! She ran out and called for me for help,” Georgas said. “The girls just want their privacy and they want their locker room back.”

Georgas said she filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, and her story has been reported by several conservative media outlets. But the school district denied that any student was forced to change in front of anyone else.

“They just want to exclude a child based on the fact that they’re transgender. It really does not have anything to do with changing. This whole thing is a mission for exclusion,” Asher McMaher, executive director of Trans Upfront Illinois, told WBEZ on Wednesday. “There has been no force of anything. The children have been given multiple options of other places they can get changed, including in a different restroom than the ones that are located inside the locker room. They just want the trans child to be excluded.”

Trans Upfront Illinois and other trans-supporting people spoke at last Thursday’s school board meeting in defense of the trans student.

In a statement provided to Fox News, Deerfield Public Schools District 109 said that no student is required to change in front of others in the locker room and added that the school’s policies align with state law.

“No student is required to change into a gym uniform for physical education class in front of others in locker rooms. All students in the middle schools have multiple options to change in a private location if they wish,” the statement reads.

Meanwhile, a federal civil rights complaint filed on Wednesday by the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies and the Liberty Justice Center alleges the Illinois State Board of Education and Chicago Public Schools are violating Title IX by forcing students to share bathrooms, locker rooms and overnight accommodations with members of the opposite sex, based solely on self-declared “gender identity.”

The complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. That department was recently gutted by the massive layoffs in the Department of Education, with the Chicago office that would normally investigate the complaint completely eliminated.

The state board of education and CPS declined to comment.

Michael Puente is a reporter and anchor at WBEZ. Follow him on Bluesky @mikepuentenews.bsky.social. You can also reach him at mpuente@wbez.org.