Student files lawsuit after he is suspended from a football game.
An Exeter High School student in New Hampshire has filed a lawsuit against the school after he was suspended from the football team for allegedly indicating that there are only “two genders.” The freshman said in the suit that he was told he was suspended for a game in September after a conversation that took place off of school grounds (although it did occur on a bus). He is also claiming in his suit that the non-binary gender designation “infringes on his First Amendment First” tied to freedom of speech and having the ability to voice concerns.
The school’s policy contends that students have the right to be addressed by the name and pronoun that they would like to be, according to how they identify, and it also indicates that those who don’t comply with the policy and misgender peers are in violation. Thus, the suspension occurred after the student disobeyed the policy.
The student doesn’t deny he violated it, according to the lawsuit. He just doesn’t agree with it, and has strong convictions regarding how he believes that gender should be viewed.
“He in fact denied, and will continue to deny, that any person can belong to a gender other than that of ‘male’ or ‘female’” the lawsuit states. “The student will never refer to any individual person using plural pronouns such as ‘they,’ using contrived pronouns such as ‘ze,’ or with any similar terminology that reflects values which (the student) does not share.”
The basis of the conversation on the bus was centered around the difficulty of using plural pronouns in Spanish to accommodate those who are nonbinary. This, according to the student, is evidence that there should only be two pronouns based on an individual’s assigned gender at birth.
“The suspension came after the student had been engaged in a conversation on the bus over gender with friends over the perceived difficulty in using plural pronouns for an individual in Spanish, which uses masculine and feminine plurals,” according to the suit. “A female student overheard the discussion and allegedly told the student there were more than two genders, to which the student replied that there are only two.”
The lawsuit states further, “She pressed M.P. [the student is only referred to in the lawsuit by his initials] on the topic of gender, demanding, ‘Give me one valid reason why there’s only two genders. The two then had a contentious exchange of texts on the issue.”
The entire texted conversation was captured and shared with the student in printed form to support his suspension. School Superintendent David Ryan responded to the litigation that the school “was reviewing the complaint and will be able to share a statement once we have completed that review.”
However, the defendant’s attorneys have stated, “Regardless of what the defendants may think about these words, M.P. did not use profane or insulting language towards any person while in the school building, on a school bus, during school activities, or on school property in any of the events leading up to his athletic suspension and this case.”