Virginia school district concedes lawsuit by Catholic student over transgender policies

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CNA Staff, Dec 5, 2025 / 12:07 pm (CNA).

A Catholic Virginia student will receive payments including attorney’s fees after a school district conceded a lawsuit she brought over the district’s transgender policies.

The student, identified in the October lawsuit as “Jane Doe,” said the Fairfax County School Board violated her constitutional rights when it subjected her to “extreme social pressure” to affirm transgender pronoun conventions.

Doe, identified as a “practicing Roman Catholic who strives daily to live in accordance with her faith,” felt compelled to engage in self-censorship in which she attempted to “avoid using pronouns altogether” in many circumstances due to fear of punishment from school officials, according to the suit.

When she expressed concerns over sharing a bathroom with a male student, meanwhile, she was told she could “use a private restroom if she felt uncomfortable,” according to the suit.

On Dec. 2 the law group America First Legal called the case a “major victory,” saying the Fairfax school district conceded the lawsuit, offering “nominal damages” and paying costs including attorney’s fees.

“This outcome sends a clear message: School systems and officials cannot disregard the safety, privacy, and dignity of students in favor of radical gender policies,” the group said.

“No student should face the threat of punishment or be pushed aside for asserting their fundamental constitutional rights,” attorney Ian Prior said in the release.

The settlement comes amid broader efforts to roll back extreme transgender ideology and LGBT policies at schools around the country, including rules that allow boys to access girls’ restrooms and other private spaces.

A California federal judge in October allowed for a class action lawsuit against California school districts that allow teachers to hide child “gender transitions” from parents.

In August, meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told states that they would be required to remove gender ideology materials from K–12 education curricula or face the loss of federal funding.

In October 2024, a school board in Virginia agreed to pay a teacher more than half a million dollars after he was fired for refusing to use a student’s transgender pronouns. In December of that year an Ohio school board paid a teacher a $450,000 settlement over a similar dispute.

A study from the Centre for Heterodox Social Science in October found a recent decline in the number of young Americans who identify as transgender or “nonheterosexual,” though a report from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law in September found that nearly 3 million Americans identify as transgender.