ME: Anti-Trans Lawsuit Dismissed, Trans Boy Remains Isolated in Homeschooling
The good news is that a federal judge dismissed an anti-trans mom’s lawsuit against a school counselor who supported her trans son. The bad news is that the boy remains in homeschooling with his anti-trans mom.
Option, by Evan Urquhart
The mother of a Maine trans boy recently saw the last portion of her lawsuit dismissed, after failing to prove that her child’s public school violated the law by giving support to her trans son behind her back. Amber Lavigne alleged that, by supporting her son’s identity, the Great Salt Bay Community School violated her right as a parent to force her then 13-year-old son to suppress his identity. This theory was rejected on April 3, 2024, by a federal judge.
Assigned Media first reported on this story over a year ago, at a time when right-wing news reports were amplifying unverified claims by Lavigne while downplaying the fact that her child, who was repeatedly misgendered in the coverage, continued to identify as a trans boy despite being pulled from a supporting school and homeschooled in an attempt to force him to re-identify as a girl.
A Bangor Daily News story covering the dismissal of the case by District Court Judge Jon Levy contains further hints that Lavigne’s son continues to assert his trans identity despite being isolated in homeschooling by an unsupportive mom. The story declines to use pronouns or gendered terms to describe the boy in their copy. This goes in contrast to the terms used by Lavigne herself, who repeatedly referrs to her “daughter” and uses female pronouns for the boy.
screenshot from Bangor Daily News
Mainstream news outlets typically use the pronouns a trans person prefers if they are known, while avoiding pronouns in cases when the individual’s preference is unclear or unknown. In this situation, Lavigne’s son’s pronouns can be inferred by the pronouns he requested when he socially transitioned at school, and through Lavigne’s statements in interviews with right-wing media that have made it clear that her son has continued to consistently identify himself as male.
While the news of the dismissal is a win for the GSBCS school board, and for schools across the country that seek to support trans youth from difficult or unsupportive homes, it does nothing to help or support the child at the heart of the case, a child whose parent is determined to force him to conform to his birth-assigned gender. Studies have consistently shown that parental support is among the most powerful factors associated with improved outcomes for trans youth. The ongoing damage being done to this young man by his mother’s lack of support and drastic actions to attempt to convert him away from a trans identity may well be lifelong.
Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media and an incoming member of the 2024-2025 Knight Science Journalism fellowship class at MIT.