A California mother is claiming in a new lawsuit that her school district facilitated her 11-year-old daughter’s gender transition and helped her keep it a secret from her family.
The mother, Aurora Regino, is suing Chico Unified School District for “affirming” her daughter’s gender identity, according to The Daily Signal. Reportedly, Regino claimed that her daughter, A.S., sought help from a school counselor because her father had passed away and she was battling breast cancer.
In a school board meeting this month, Regino shared that her daughter’s new gender identity was affirmed instantly in a meeting with a counselor.
“My 11-year-old daughter was in elementary school here at Chico Unified and her elementary school transitioned her from female to male behind my back,” Regino said. “My daughter was distressed and began questioning her sexuality so she decided to reach out to a wellness counselor at her elementary school. The day my daughter shared with her guidance counselor that she felt like a boy, the counselor immediately affirmed this new identity.”
Chico Unified reportedly has “secretive” transgender policies that do not give parents the right to know about conversations involving their child’s gender identity. Regino’s daughter, A.S., told her counselor that she wanted to keep her mother in the loop about “her struggles with her sexual identity,” but the counselor ignored her requests.
“This was a time when she needed me the most and you kept it a secret from me,” Regino said.
“Treating every parent as a potential threat to their kids is wrong,” she added. “But regardless of what people say, I love my children and there isn’t anything they could ever do to change that.”
The Signal reported that The Center for American Liberty filed the suit on Regino’s behalf against the superintendent and school board members who voted for the transgender policies.
“The Chico Unified School Board’s decision to keep the parental secrecy policy in place is a slap in the face to every parent whose child is under their care,” the Center for American Liberty’s CEO, Harmeet Dhillon, told the outlet. “It makes a mockery of fundamental, constitutionally protected, parental rights and puts every child’s safety at risk. If the Board won’t rescind this unconstitutional policy, our lawsuit will prompt the court to do it for them.”
A poll released by parental rights organization Parents Defending Education found that 74 percent of registered voters believe that schools should not help students change their gender identity without parental consent, which Townhall covered.
“The results of this survey simply reinforce what we at Parents Defending Education have been hearing from parents all over the country: the constant whispering at our children’s ears that we -their parents- are their enemy, is negatively impacting families everywhere,” Mailyn Salabarria, director of community engagement at PDE, told Townhall. “Education officials at all levels and policymakers should take note: we are the parents, we all want the best for our children, and we are not going anywhere anytime soon.”