A New York mother is suing the Skaneateles Central School District for allegedly treating her middle-school daughter as a boy without parental knowledge or consent.
Jennifer Vitsaxaki took legal action on Wednesday after discovering the alleged deception, which took place during the 2020–2021 school year.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, alleges that school employees concealed from the mother that they had begun to treat her daughter as a boy, including being called a masculine name and using “they” and “them” pronouns.
When Ms. Vitsaxaki’s daughter began to exhibit anxiety and depression and became reluctant to go to school, she turned to her daughter’s teachers and school officials, who repeatedly told the mother they hadn’t noticed anything to worry about.
However, during this time, teachers and school district officials were “socially transitioning” Ms. Vitsaxaki’s daughter and concealing this alleged fact from her mother, at the request of a school psychologist and per district policy, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit argues that by “socially transitioning” the student without parental consent and concealing crucial information about her well-being, the district violated Mrs. Vitsaxaki’s fundamental parental rights and her deeply held religious beliefs.
After a school counselor instructed staff to socially transition the girl by calling her a boy’s name and using third-person plural pronouns, a school psychologist who began to secretly meet with the girl without her mother’s knowledge “told school staff to keep their actions secret.”
“No one informed Mrs. Vitsaxaki that the school district had made any of these decisions … and taken all of these actions toward her daughter,” the complaint reads.
Lawyers for Ms. Vitsaxaki stated in the complaint that the mother was kept in the dark about her daughter’s struggles with gender identity and the school officials’ efforts to counsel her. This counseling included “sending her resources for medical transition,” while the middle-school girl’s “mental condition got worse.”
The young girl resisted going to school, became anxious, and began to speak negatively about herself. Her mother became so desperate to find out what was wrong that she took a job driving the school bus.
“By concealing from Mrs. Vitsaxaki this important information about her daughter, the School District betrayed Mrs. Vitsaxaki’s trust. It also violated the U.S. Constitution,” the complaint reads.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the mother by Alliance Defending Freedom, whose senior counsel, Kate Anderson, said that the U.S. Constitution grants parents the right to make decisions about their children’s upbringing, education, and health care.
“Parents, not the government, have the right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children,” Ms. Anderson said in a statement.
“Parents should be able to drop their kids off at school without fear that school staff will conceal critical information or cut them out of weighty decisions with the potential for life-long impact on their kids.
“Because school officials concealed their actions from Mrs. Vitsaxaki, they prevented her from helping her daughter at a time when she needed her mother’s loving guidance most. Schools shouldn’t hide important information from parents like Mrs. Vitsaxaki,” Ms. Anderson added.
When Ms. Vitsaxaki confronted school officials, they defended their actions, citing district policy, according to her lawyers.
School officials continued to call her daughter by a boy’s name even after Ms. Vitsaxaki told them to stop and removed her from in-person schooling to finish the school year online, according to the lawyers. The mother ultimately enrolled her daughter in a private school some 25 miles away.
The Epoch Times contacted the Skaneateles Central School District for comment.
