In a lawsuit against Edmond Public Schools, an Oklahoma mother is alleging that her 15-year-old daughter was “attacked and severely beaten” by a 17-year-old male student in the girls’ restroom.
The lawsuit — which was filed on May 25 by the child’s mother, Theresa Gooden — states that the attack happened at approximately 7:15 a.m. on October 26, 2022. At the time of the attack, the school district was aware of the male student claiming to be a transgender girl — and that he “regularly used the girl’s bathroom and not the boy’s bathroom,” according to Gooden’s lawsuit.
Breaking:
A lawsuit has been filed against a school in Oklahoma after it violated state policy barring self ID for bathroom usage, and let a “trans girl” use the female restroom.
A female student was then brutally attacked by the trans student.https://t.co/RWfLIvbpje
— Right Side of History™️ (@xxclusionary) May 31, 2023
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed a law in August that required public school students in the state to use bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates, and those who claim to be transgender and don’t want to use the correct bathroom must use a single-occupancy bathroom or changing room provided by the school.
According to the lawsuit, that legislation contains a cause of action provision for parents of students at schools that do not comply with the measure.
Oklahoma mother Theresa Gooden has filed a lawsuit against Edmond Public Schools (EPS) after her 15-year-old daughter was violently attacked by a transgender student inside the school’s female washroom.
The school claims they did not get a birth certificate and the student was… pic.twitter.com/u95ogxNBET
— AlphaFox (@Alphafox78) June 1, 2023
The complaint also asserts that the male student had a history of violence — including an October 21, 2022 incident in which Edmond Police were called to remove the boy from the girls’ bathroom and search him for a weapon, as he had allegedly threatened a female student.
“Despite Defendant’s actual knowledge of the above, Defendant allowed the male transgender student to continue using the girl’s bathroom, as opposed to requiring the male transgender student to use a bathroom that matched his birth certificate and/or paternity affidavit — boy’s bathroom — as required under the law,” the lawsuit states.
“Defendant’s negligent failure and/or refusal to comply with the law resulted in Plaintiff’s injuries and damages, which include but are not limited to, severe physical and mental injuries, severe physical and mental pain and suffering, and severe emotions distress,” the lawsuit continues.
Gooden has petitioned the court for $75,000 in damages from the school district to pay her attorney’s fees and other lawsuit-related costs.
According to reporting from Fox25, Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald previously addressed the incident in a YouTube video published in December 2022.
“You may ask yourself how can that happen?” Grunewald said in the video. “It’s hard to explain, but if a parent comes in and enrolls their child as a certain gender, and when you look at that child by all social norms they look and present themselves as that gender, it’s not something that you would question.”
“Also in high school, birth certificates are not required to start school. So there was no birth certificate in the (student’s) file at the time to verify one way or another,” she claimed.
Grunewald went on to note that the male student is no longer enrolled at the school, claiming that he had faced “consequences” for his actions — though she did not elaborate as to what those consequences were.
“We had two policies broken at this time,” the superintendent said. “One, we have a policy against fighting. And we have a policy that our school board enacted in August of this school year that says all students must go to the bathroom of their birth gender, and both of those policies were broken. And both of them have consequences. I can tell you consequences were given for both violations.”
