PALMER — A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Mat-Su transgender student contends a school district rule banning him from using the bathroom of his choice violates his rights under the state constitution.
The ACLU of Alaska filed the civil lawsuit Wednesday in Palmer Superior Court on behalf of two parents representing their son, a transgender elementary student.
The complaint asks the court to block the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District from enforcing a policy that requires students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their biological gender at birth or a private restroom or changing room.
It also asks the court to block the district from disclosing transgender students’ birth names and sex through the school’s internal information system, and instead share only their preferred names and genders with most staff. Publicizing a transgender student’s birth gender and name is a violation of privacy, the complaint states.
A separate motion also filed Wednesday asks the court to allow the parents and student to remain anonymous because disclosure of their identities could result in harassment.
The lawsuit is the fourth legal action filed against the school district by civil rights advocates since November.
The Mat-Su school board voted to ban transgender students and staff from using facilities that matched their gender identities in September 2022, suspending an existing policy that allowed for more flexibility.
The suit contends the district’s policy has made the student feel unsafe and singled out, without a reasonable regular bathroom option.
The new bathroom policy “infringes on the student’s constitutional right to privacy because it violates his fundamental right to make his own choices about his body, his name, his gender identity, and the appropriate bathroom for him to use,” ACLU officials said in a statement.
Other students complained about a boy in the girls’ bathroom when the student used the facility matching his female birth gender, the complaint states. But using private bathrooms a distance from his classroom leads to missed instruction time, it states.
The student now avoids using the bathroom at all, limits his fluid intake, and faces physical pain from holding his urine all day, the complaint states. He “just wants to be able to go to school like any other kid, to focus on learning and socializing with his peers, and not have constant stress and anxiety about where and when he is going to be able to use the bathroom.”
A Mat-Su district spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday because district officials had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit.
The suit becomes the latest of several civil lawsuits pending against the school district.
A class-action suit filed in December by the Anchorage-based Northern Justice Project contends the district illegally restrains and isolates disabled students in violation of both state and federal laws. And two lawsuits filed in late November by the Northern Justice Project and the ACLU of Alaska contend the district violated students’ civil rights by limiting free speech, first by removing 56 books from school library shelves, and later by investigating and then blocking students’ political speech.
All three cases remain in progress, attorneys with the Northern Justice Project said this week.