A Maryland school district is being sued by parents who accuse school officials of hiding their daughter's social gender transition and then citing district policy to justify keeping them in the dark. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, is led by America First Legal on behalf of anonymous parents identified as John and Jane Doe. The plaintiffs argue that Anne Arundel County Public Schools' policies violate their First and 14th Amendment rights, as well as similar provisions of the Maryland Constitution.
According to the complaint, the dispute began in December 2025 after a teacher accidentally emailed the parents using a male name for their daughter before attempting to recall the message and later claiming it had been sent to the wrong recipient. The lawsuit alleges the teacher later admitted the explanation was false and acknowledged the student had requested to be called by a male name. The parents then instructed school officials to use only their daughter's legal name and requested records related to the school's actions. The complaint alleges school administrators refused those requests, citing the district's policies and telling the parents that school staff were required to honor the student's preferred name while at school.
Months later, another teacher allegedly used the same male name in an email about an upcoming field trip. When the parents questioned it, the lawsuit says, the teacher initially gave a false explanation before admitting the name referred to their daughter. According to the lawsuit, the district's policies require staff to use students' preferred names and pronouns and keep information about their gender identity confidential without notifying or getting permission from parents.
Ian Prior, senior advisor at America First Legal and counsel for the plaintiffs, said the district ignored the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta, which America First Legal says reinforced parents' constitutional rights over decisions involving their children. «The school system was referring to our client's daughter by a male name and assuming a male identity for their daughter, and they didn't approve that. And they weren't told of that. And when they did find out about it, and they questioned the school, they were quite frankly lied to about it,» Prior told Fox News Digital. «They said this is not going to happen anymore. We deny consent. And the school said, 'Well, too bad, that's the law.' Unfortunately, for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, that is not the law.»
Prior argued that the Supreme Court made clear in Mirabelli that «parents have a fundamental right to raise their children» and contended that schools cannot facilitate a child's social transition without parental notice and consent. The Maryland case is the latest in a series of lawsuits America First Legal has filed challenging school policies governing student gender identity. Just weeks earlier, on June 22, 2025, the organization filed a separate federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Fairfax County Public Schools. That lawsuit alleges the district's policy violates parents' constitutional rights by allowing school staff to socially transition students, including using different names and pronouns at school without notifying parents in certain circumstances. The Fairfax litigation remains in its early stages.
Prior said America First Legal is also pursuing similar parental rights cases in Pennsylvania and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. The litigation comes amid a broader push by the Trump administration to challenge school policies concerning parental notification and gender identity. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that the California Department of Education remains in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), finding that state policies pressure school officials to conceal information about students' gender identity from parents. California has pushed back against the federal government's conclusions, and related legal challenges remain ongoing.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools declined to comment on the litigation. The case adds to a growing wave of legal challenges targeting school districts with policies allowing staff to withhold information about a student's gender identity from parents, raising questions about the balance between student privacy and parental rights in educational settings.
