EXCLUSIVE: Lawsuit Against School District Which Secretly Transitioned Tween Girls Added to SCOTUS Docket

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The America First Policy Institute asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of two families whose daughters were exposed to transgender ideology behind their backs.

In 2021, Erin Lee’s 12-year-old daughter was invited by her art teacher to come to art club after school in the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado. Little did Lee know, it was a Gay Straight Awareness club where a guest speaker told her daughter if she’s “not 100% comfortable in her female body, she’s transgender.”

The 12-year-old girl, who was new to the middle school, then adopted a transgender identity and was affirmed by the art club. The guest speaker, Kimberly Chambers, director of SPLASH Youth, an LGBTQ group open to kids as young as 5 years old, told students parents aren’t safe and encouraged them to lie to their parents to attend the club. Chambers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lee said she called 40 lawyers to take her case, and they all declined because the art club didn’t use a formal gender transition plan, until she found America First Policy Institute.

Lee’s case was first filed in May of 2023, the day before her statute of limitations lapsed, around two years after Lee’s daughter first attended the art club. The Lee family and another family similarly harmed by the secret gender and sexuality club are the plaintiffs.

The case was dismissed in December 2023, and the plaintiffs amended and refiled. The case was dismissed again, so AFPI appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and were granted oral argument.

On July 23, the case, which AFPI says could reshape the legal boundaries around parental rights in public schools, was added to the Supreme Court docket.

“This appeal gives us hope that there will be justice, not just for our families, but for the countless families across the country who’ve also been affected by secret school transition,” Erin and Jonathan Lee said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “It gives us hope that accountability will be brought to all the schools usurping the inalienable rights of parents.

The families argue that the school district’s policies and practices, which discourage teachers from notifying parents about gender identity matters, were directly responsible for the emotional harm their daughters experienced.

“The Court has repeatedly affirmed that America is built on individual liberty, which includes the rights of parents to raise their children,” Gina M. D’Andrea, deputy general counsel at AFPI, told The Daily Signal. “No state can contravene this right. We at AFPI are honored to stand with parents and defend their right to raise their children without government interference or control.”

In the petition to the Supreme Court, AFPI says that the lower court’s ruling conflicts with prior decisions and leaves a dangerous gray area where schools can push ideology without transparency or accountability.

“This isn’t a policy dispute,” Steinmann said in a statement. “This is about whether schools can override parents—and whether courts are willing to stop them when they do.”

Lee’s local lawyer, Brad Bergford, told The Daily Signal he hopes the Supreme Court will take the case and affirm parental rights.

“When adults tell children that their interactions should be their little secret, alarm bells should sound, and we have sounded the alarm at the United States Supreme Court,” he said. “After all, parents cannot make informed, high-quality decisions where schools operate under a policy of hiding crucial information and asking children to help keep their secrets.”

“The primacy of the role of parents must be affirmed, and we bring our challenge in the hope that the Supreme Court will do so,” he continued.

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