Father Sues Over School Pronoun and Name Change Policy

A father in Cherry Hill New Jersey has filed a lawsuit over the school system’s policy that allows transgender students to change their name and pronouns without parental approval or notification. Frederick Short Jr., who has three children who attend Cherry Hill High School, filed the lawsuit contesting Policy 5756 in U.S. District Court on October 12.

The contested policy—which is not mandatory—was created by the state of New Jersey and is based on Former Governor Chris Christie’s 2017 law requiring the education commissioner to develop and distribute guidelines detailing protections for transgender students.

The policy, which is meant to be “student-centered,” states that the school district will accept the student’s asserted gender identity, and that “A student need not meet any threshold diagnosis or treatment requirements to have his or her gender identity recognized and respected by the school district, school, or school staff members. In addition, a legal or court-ordered name change is not required.” It also states that there is no affirmative duty for school district staff to notify a student’s parent of the student’s gender identity or expression.

Short disagrees with this policy, stating that it violates his 14th Amendment rights to supervise the upbringing and welfare of his children. “I don’t agree with the policy,” Short says. “To me, it’s so out of whack that a parent doesn’t have the right to know what’s going on in their child’s life. I just want to know.”

“I think I should know everything my child is doing in school. Why does the school have to hide things?” he adds.

Short’s lawsuit comes as several other New Jersey school districts reject and alter the statewide policy. Hanover Township, Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown, and Marlboro were sued by the state in June for passing versions of the policy that require teachers to inform parents of pronoun, name, or bathroom changes.

Some school representatives argue that 5756 was adopted because it was believed to be mandatory after Strauss Esmay, a school policy and regulation consulting service, designated it as such in 2019.

“There was a widespread effort to misrepresent to school districts statewide that (Policy) 5756 was mandatory,” Hanover school board member Gregory Skiff says. “Districts reasonably relied on those misrepresentations and adopted it.”

“There’s only a handful of districts that have reversed this policy. And I can’t understand why anyone would remove policies that are keeping kids safe,” Christian Fuscarino, executive director of Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy and education organization, says.

“It seems as if it’s spreading like wildfire,” Brielle Winslow-Majette, also of Garden State Equality, adds. “Honestly, it’s deeply disturbing and very concerning that we are kind of losing focus of who is at the center of these policies, which are the youth.”