Trump Spotlights Disputed Parental Rights Case in Transgender Policy Push

Emails and court rulings challenge the accuracy of claims made by Trump regarding a Florida family's lawsuit against a school over their child's gender identity.

President Donald Trump highlighted the case of January Littlejohn during his congressional address, claiming her child's school secretly socially transitioned the child without parental consent.
Emails from 2020 reveal that the Littlejohns were aware of their child's request to use a new name and pronouns at school and had communicated support for the school following the child's lead.
The Littlejohn family sued the school district, alleging they were excluded from decisions about their child's transgender support plan, but a federal judge dismissed the case in December 2022.
The court found no evidence that the school forced the child to adopt a support plan or acted against the child's will, contrary to claims made by Trump and similar statements by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in prior years.
Trump used the case to advocate for policies banning transgender accommodations in schools and criminalizing medical interventions for minors, framing these measures as protecting children and parental rights.