Arizona appeals court partially revives lawsuit about transgender students’ identity

PHOENIX – The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a ruling last week that revived part of a lawsuit regarding transgender students’ identity being revealed to parents.

The Dec. 30 ruling supports a parent’s right to sue their child’s public school over withheld information related to gender identity.

The case was originally filed in Nov. 2023 in Maricopa County Superior Court by Rachel Walden, a member of the Mesa Public Schools (MPS) Governing Board.

She alleged the district guidelines for supporting transgender students did not follow the Parent’s Bill of Rights law, saying schools were purposely keeping information from parents.

In Feb. 2024, an anonymous parent referred to as Jane Doe joined the lawsuit, saying her biological female child had been using a male name at an MPS school, but it was not reported to her because the name was not changed digitally.

According to the school’s guidelines, transgender students can fill out a support plan for how to be addressed and guided. The parents are only required to be notified when the student’s name is changed on the digital information site Synergy.

The school denied the claims, saying the Transgender Support Plan was not keeping information from parents and had since been updated to be more clear.

How have courts ruled in case about transgender students’ identity?

In July 2024, the lower court dismissed the case, saying Doe’s claims have been resolved and were no longer relevant. The court also dismissed Walden’s claims over a failure to “state a claim for declaratory relief,” which would have reaffirmed the parents’ rights to knowledge about their children from the school district.

Now, the appeals court ruled that Doe’s testimony should be included in the case and decision, sending it back to the Superior Court for consideration. However, the appeals court also affirmed the lower court’s decision to dismiss Walden’s claims.

Appellate Judge Michael Brown wrote that dismissing the case completely would strip Doe of some of her rights as a parent.

“Given the expansive rights afforded to parents under the PBOR [Parent’s Bill of Rights], accepting MPS’s position in a motion to dismiss — that every concern Doe had has been resolved — would diminish those rights,” he wrote in the decision.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne released a statement supporting the decision.

“Arizona law is very clear on the right of parents and they should be informed when a child expresses a desire to be identified as a sex other than the one to which they were born,” Horne said.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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