EXCLUSIVE: The American Parents Coalition (APC) is weighing in on a lawsuit against a Florida middle school accused of secretly socially transitioning a 13-year-old girl behind her family’s back.
The group, which advocates for the rights of parents and families across the country, filed a brief in support of the Littlejohn family with the 11th Circuit Court on Wednesday. APC is arguing that so-called social transitioning is a type of medical treatment and that “parents have a substantive due process right to be informed about the treatments a school administers to their minor child and to refuse those treatments.”
The girl’s parents, January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, filed the suit against the school board of Leon County, Florida.
In an interview earlier this year, January Littlejohn, who was one of President Donald Trump’s guests at his address to a joint session of Congress, shared how the school’s actions had an extreme, “destructive” effect on her daughter and entire family. Littlejohn said that despite the school’s behavior, her daughter has worked through her gender confusion. But she said the school’s actions created a “huge wedge between us and our daughter” that “took many years to repair.”
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She explained that the school “took it upon themselves to intervene and socially transition my child” when the girl and her friends became fixated on their gender identity.
Though some consider social transitioning virtually harmless, Littlejohn explained that it “goes way beyond name and pronouns.”
“They sit the child down, and, in our case, it was behind closed doors with three adults that consisted of the school counselor, the assistant principal and a social worker I had never met, and they did an official ‘gender support plan,’” she explained.
In this session, Littlejohn said, the school staff asked her daughter what bathroom and locker rooms she wanted to use, which sex she wanted to room with during overnight trips and whether she wanted her parents to be notified.
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“They put the burden on her as to whether or not my parental rights would be honored by deciding she was the sole decision-maker as to whether or not my husband and I would be notified of the meeting,” she explained.
Littlejohn said that when she made inquiries about the session to the school, she was told “they could not give me any information about that meeting” and “that my daughter was now protected by a nondiscrimination law.”
Despite this, a three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 against the Littlejohns, saying the incident did not violate the parents’ due process rights.
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After this ruling, the Littlejohns appealed to have their case heard by the entire 11th Circuit Court. The American Parents Coalition joined in support of the Littlejohns’ lawsuit Wednesday.
In its brief, APC states that the Leon County School Board “violated the requirements of substantive due process when it started a minor child on the road to gender transition without the knowledge and consent of the child’s parents.”
The brief argues that, regardless of debates about the safety and efficacy of gender transition treatments, “this much is clear: social transitioning is the first step in a process to treat a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria that then leads to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.”
The group said that “even for proponents of this care, this first step can’t be taken lightly.” Yet, in the Littlejohns’ case, “the local school board decided that the parents should not be informed and need not consent before their middle-school age child is socially transitioned.”
“There’s no doubt that social transitioning is a medical treatment,” the group argues. “Parents should be involved in the medical process from this very first step — they should walk with their children through the challenges of growing up.”
Alleigh Marré, executive director of APC, explained the decision to join the Littlejohns’ suit, telling Fox News Digital her group is determined to “support parents and families and ensure nothing stands between parents and their child.”
“No parent should ever be kept in the dark about their child,” said Marré. “When the school took steps to socially transition the Littlejohns’ daughter without their knowledge or consent, it wasn’t a misstep, it was a deliberate attempt to cut parents out of critical decisions while pushing gender ideology onto a child.
“This blatant flouting of parental rights and authority simply cannot be accepted or normalized.”
Chris Petley, a representative for Leon County Schools, responded to APC’s amicus brief by telling Fox News Digital that the schools “will respond appropriately to this latest legal challenge just like we have to the others before it.”
Petley asserted that “at no time did any LCS employee attempt to ‘socially transition’ a student in our school system.” Saying that, “for us, the truth matters. We look forward to a swift conclusion of this situation soon.”