FIRST ON FOX: School lied, hid daughter's gender transition under district policy, parents allege
FIRST ON FOX: A Maryland school district is being sued after parents accused school officials of hiding their daughter's social gender transition and then citing district policy to justify keeping them in the dark.
America First Legal (AFL) is leading the lawsuit on behalf of anonymous parents identified as John and Jane Doe. The plaintiffs argue Anne Arundel County Public Schools' policies violate their First and 14th Amendment rights, as well as similar provisions of the Maryland Constitution. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
The lawsuit is part of a growing wave of legal challenges targeting school districts with policies allowing staff to withhold information about a student's gender identity from parents. It also comes months after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta, which America First Legal says reinforced parents' constitutional rights over decisions involving their children.
Ian Prior, senior advisor at America First Legal and counsel for the plaintiffs, said the district ignored that precedent.
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"The school system was referring to our client's daughter by a male name and assuming a male identity for their daughter, and they didn't approve that. And they weren't told of that. And when they did find out about it, and they questioned the school, they were quite frankly lied to about it," Prior told Fox News Digital.
"They said this is not going to happen anymore. We deny consent. And the school said, 'Well, too bad, that's the law.' Unfortunately, for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, that is not the law."
Prior said the Supreme Court made clear in Mirabelli that "parents have a fundamental right to raise their children" and argued schools cannot facilitate a child's social transition without parental notice and consent.
According to the complaint, the dispute began in December 2025 after a teacher accidentally emailed the parents using a male name for their daughter before attempting to recall the message and later claiming it had been sent to the wrong recipient. The lawsuit alleges the teacher later admitted the explanation was false and acknowledged the student had requested to be called by a male name. The parents then instructed school officials to use only their daughter's legal name and requested records related to the school's actions.
The complaint alleges school administrators refused those requests, citing the district's policies and telling the parents that school staff were required to honor the student's preferred name while at school.
Months later, another teacher allegedly used the same male name in an email about an upcoming field trip. When the parents questioned it, the lawsuit says, the teacher initially gave a false explanation before admitting the name referred to their daughter.
According to the lawsuit, the district's policies require staff to use students' preferred names and pronouns and keep information about their gender identity confidential without notifying or getting permission from parents.
"It's really unfortunate that this even has to result in litigation, because, again, the Supreme Court has been very clear about what schools can and cannot do. But what we've really seen throughout the country is that, in order to get schools to adhere to the Constitution and the law of the land, you have to bring them to court and get a court order demanding that they follow the law," Prior told Fox News Digital.
The Maryland case is the latest in a series of lawsuits AFL has filed challenging school policies governing student gender identity.
Just weeks earlier, on June 22, 2025, America First Legal filed a separate federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Fairfax County Public Schools. That lawsuit alleges the district's policy violates parents' constitutional rights by allowing school staff to socially transition students, including using different names and pronouns at school without notifying parents in certain circumstances. The Fairfax litigation remains in its early stages.
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Prior said AFL is also pursuing similar parental rights cases in Pennsylvania and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California.
The litigation also comes amid a broader push by the Trump administration to challenge school policies concerning parental notification and gender identity. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that the California Department of Education remains in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), finding that state policies pressure school officials to conceal information about students' gender identity from parents. California has pushed back against the federal government's conclusions and related legal challenges remain ongoing.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools declined to comment on the litigation.