Federal court: No misgendering transgender students on religious grounds
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a public school teacher does not have the right to misgender a transgender student simply because they’re trans.
The court found a religious accommodation could not justify the “harm to students and disruption to the learning environment.” The 3-judge circuit court panel upheld a Jan.
8, 2020, ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
The case on behalf of John Kluge, who worked at Brownsburg High School in Brownsburg, Ind., as a music and orchestra teacher from 2014 until May 2018, was brought by the anti-LGBTQ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which self labels as a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, but the Southern Poverty Law Center first listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group in 2016.
