Supreme Court sidesteps pronouns case on trans rights vs. parents rights

Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY Mon, April 20, 2026 at 2:28 PM UTC

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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court won't decide whether a school violated parents' constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their child when handling a student’s request to be identified by a specific name and pronouns.

The justices' rejection of an appeal from parents in Massachusetts came despite the fact that, in March, the court's conservative majority granted an emergency request from California parents to block state rules aimed at preventing teachers from outing transgender students to their parents.

The issue of how schools can best support transgender and gender-nonconforming students has ignited fierce debates across the country, including in other lawsuits that the Supreme Court previously declined to review.

In the case the court on April 20 declined to hear, parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri said employees at Baird Middle School in Ludlow, Massachusetts, "secretly facilitated" their child’s "social gender transition."

In 2021, the student – identified in the lawsuit by the initials B.F. − emailed teachers and other employees announcing they identified as genderqueer and asking to be referred to by a new name and array of pronouns.

After meeting with B.F., the school counselor told staff the student was still in the process of sharing the information with Foote and Silvestri. The student asked that the school continue using B.F.’s legal name and female pronouns when communicating with their parents. The counselor directed school employees to honor that request, according to court records.

The parents ultimately sued the school district, saying the school violated their parental rights protected under the due process clause of the Constitution.

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General view shows the United States Supreme Court, in Washington, U.S., February 8, 2024.

A federal judge dismissed their complaint. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Court of Appeals likewise said the parents did not have a claim under the 14th Amendment's due process clause, which courts have interpreted as guaranteeing fundamental parental rights.

A three-judge panel said the school’s failure to disclose how a student wants to be referred to at school does not violate parental rights in part because "public schools need not offer students an educational experience tailored to the preferences of their parent."

"To the extent the Parents oppose certain academic assignments, the use of a student’s pronouns in the classroom, decisions about bathroom access, and a guidance counselor speaking to a student, none of those concerns restrict parental rights under the Due Process Clause," the appeals court ruled in February. "Rather, the Parents are challenging how Baird Middle School chooses to maintain what it considers a desirable and fruitful pedagogical environment."

But last year, the Supreme Court said a Maryland public school district’s refusal to allow parents to opt their children out of reading LGBTQ+ themed storybooks burdens parents’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

While that decision involved religious rights, which the parents in the Massachusetts case did not assert, their lawyers argued, "applying similar principles to fundamental parental rights is the next logical step to protect parents who object to gender ideology for moral and scientific reasons rather than religious ones."

"Parental-rights jurisprudence in the lower courts is a mess," lawyers with the conservative legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the parents, wrote in their appeal. "The Court should grant review and fix it."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court won't take up trans rights case on pronouns in schools

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