The trans madness continues to harm vulnerable students—and now the parents of a nine-year-old daughter are suing.
The parents of the third-grade female student at Rochester Memorial Elementary School located in Rochester, Massachusetts have filed a Title IX suit against their local school district for failing to adequately protect their daughter from the inappropriate actions of a trans-identified male student. According to the legal filing, the boy pushed open the door to a stall in the girls’ restroom while the girl was in a state of partial undress and using the lavatory.
The Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center, which filed the complaint on behalf of the girl’s parents, describes the disturbing details of the incident which occurred on May 1st of this year:
Last week, we connected with Kerri and Luis Rivera, the Christian parents of a 9-year-old student at Rochester Memorial elementary school. Their daughter is a shy and polite 3rd-Grade student there. But they were shocked when their daughter recently came home visibly upset about what happened in school that day. She explained that she had been using the girls’ restroom when a boy in her class who identified as transgender came into the bathroom. It was bad enough that a boy would be allowed to use the girl’s bathroom at all, but what happened next was much worse. The boy saw her feet under the stall and said “who’s feet are those?” When she didn’t answer, he peered through the crack in the door and opened the door to look at her while she was in the toilet stall. Deeply embarrassed and upset, she returned to class crying.
Nor was this an isolated incident. The Riveras had previously complained to the school principal three times about the trans student’s penchant for using the girls’ restroom. Kerri Rivera was told by the school principal that the student would not be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom in the future, but clearly this prohibition was not enforced.
After the incident in which their daughter’s privacy was violated by the male student barging into her stall, the principal suddenly claimed she was unable to bar him from the girls’ bathroom.
“Now, she claimed, the school was legally required to allow this boy into the girls’ bathroom, because Massachusetts law prohibits discrimination based on gender identity,” describes the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center. “If the Riveras’ daughter felt uncomfortable, she could go and use a single-occupancy bathroom – not the boy. The school shifted the burden from the perpetrator onto the victim.”
Compounding the outrage, the parent of a different female student had also previously complained to the school about the same trans-identified boy peeking under the lavatory stall at their daughter in the girls’ restroom. Despite these repeated incidents, the elementary school failed to protect the female students in its charge, nor did they warn their parents.
Speaking before the Rochester School Committee last month, Luis Rivera was visibly emotional describing what his daughter went through due to the school’s failure to protect her rights.
“While my daughter was using the restroom at the school, a transgender boy that is biologically intact entered the restroom, was looking through the cracks of her stall while she was inside, then proceeded to push his way into the stall despite knowing that she was in there,” he said. “My daughter was humiliated, embarrassed, frightened, and left feeling completely violated while sitting defenseless in what should have been a private and safe moment for any child.”
“I want to make something very clear,” he added. “This is not about attacking anyone’s identity. This is not about politics. This is about my daughter’s right to privacy, dignity, safety. Every student deserves to feel protected while at school, especially in a vulnerable place like a restroom. Whether you define this behavior as harassment, intimidation, bullying, or voyeuristic conduct, my daughter’s personal boundaries were violated and in many situations outside the school environment, this type of conduct would have carried serious consequences.”
Mr. Rivera also called out the school district and its administrators for failing to react appropriately to the situation. “Despite multiple emails to both the principal and superintendent, what we received felt more like an attempt to minimize the seriousness of this incident than to generally address it,” he told the school board. “My daughter who is only nine years old was spoken to about laws and policies without her parents being there, like she has some law degree. Somehow that outweighs the emotional trauma she was experiencing. She was told to use the single restroom if she felt uncomfortable, so she went from the victim to being the perpetrator here. At that moment my child did not need a lecture about policy. She needed compassion, she needed reassurance, she needed adults in a position of authority to make her feel safe and protected.”
Even now, Mr. Rivera explained, his daughter continues to suffer from the repercussions of this incident. “Since then the emotional impact on her has only grown worse,” he described, explaining how his daughter fears going to school every morning. “She has reported being taunted and labeled a tattletale by this [transgender] individual, they have been isolating her simply for speaking up and defending herself.”
“Our family felt dismissed and ignored,” he concluded.
“No 9-year-old girl should have her privacy and dignity violated because her school wants to promote a radical transgender ideology,” the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center asserts. “When we heard from the Riveras about how their daughter’s rights had been infringed, we immediately drafted a sexual harassment complaint and demand letter to Old Rochester Regional School District. In our letter, we demanded that the school conduct a thorough investigation into this incident, discipline the offending student, and prohibit him and all other male students from using the girls’ bathroom.”
The legal center further “explained the Trump administration’s recent actions under Title IX against schools that have similar policies” and “put them on notice that we had filed a federal Title IX complaint with the Office of Civil Rights.”
Let us hope that the federal justice system does what school leaders in Massachusetts are clearly unwilling to do—act to protect and defend the legal rights of women and girls.
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