On Monday, a federal court moved to dismiss a case challenging gender identity guidelines in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS).
The 2-1 decision from the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit moved the case to the district court to be dismissed for lack of standing.
According to court documents, three parents with children in MCPS challenged guidelines that allow MCPS to withhold information from parents about gender support plans developed for students.
The parents alleged the policy “unconstitutionally usurps the parents’ fundamental right to raise their children under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
MCPS offers an intake form for supporting student gender identity, which is used to develop a plan to support the student while in school and school activities. According to MCPS, parents “may be involved if the student states that they are aware of and supportive of the student’s gender identity.” MCPS instructs to keep the form in a “secure, confidential location.”
In the majority opinion from Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, he wrote that the parents did not allege their kids have gender plans, are transgender or are struggling with gender identity. They did not allege that MCPS has any information that is being withheld about their kids or that there is substantial risk that information will be withheld in future.
“Thus, under the Constitution, they have not alleged the type of injury required to show standing.” Quattlebaum’s majority opinion was joined by Judge Allison Jones Rushing.
The dissenting opinion, written by Judge Paul Victor Niemeyer, states that the “issue of whether and how grade school and high school students choose to pursue gender transition is a family matter, not one to be addressed initially and exclusively by public schools without the knowledge and consent of parents.”
Niemeyer stated that the majority is “unnecessarily subjecting the Parents by default to a mandatory policy that pulls the discussion of gender issues from the family circle to the public schools without any avenue of redress by the Parents.”
He said the majority opinion “totally overlooks” allegations about the parents’ injury, which he states are sufficient to give standing.
