Christian Teacher Fired for Revealing Student's 'Gender Transition' to Parents Sues School
A teacher fired over her concern for a student’s welfare is not going down without a fight.
Bonnie Manchester, whom MassResistance reported is a Christian, was sacked from a middle school in Ludlow, Massachusetts, back in 2021 after informing a female student’s father that the school was secretly referring to his daughter as a boy.
Two years on, Manchester is filing a $10 million lawsuit against Ludlow, its school board, current and former school district superintendents, and several former school employees.
One of the defendants, the school’s former librarian, is a woman who identifies as a man. She allegedly pushed books on children containing sexually explicit content, “either in the form of illustrations, explicit descriptions of sexual activity, or both.”
“Some promoted a gay lifestyle, others trans,” the lawsuit states. “All advanced a view wherein gender confusion, sexual experimentation, promiscuity, or all three were considered normal.”
After Manchester pushed back against the distribution of such material, she says she was subjected to “a years-long bullying campaign and conspiracy … that culminated in her termination.”
The dispute that resulted in Manchester’s firing began when an 11-year-old female student struggling with mental health issues announced to school staff that she was “genderqueer.”
The school responded by facilitating a “deceitful double life,” the lawsuit says. “All were to present the Female Child as a female student to her parents, but as a male student to the rest of the School community.”
Fired teacher files $10 million lawsuit against MA @LudlowPublicSchools, school officials & school committee.
She was fired for informing parents that school was pushing “transgender” identity on their child.
MassResistance helped expose #Ludlow!
SEE: https://t.co/pWo2fb1zC5 pic.twitter.com/RsbzEiacqC
— MassResistance (@MassResistance) December 4, 2023
When Manchester decided to inform the girl’s father of his daughter’s secret “gender transition,” the school launched an investigation into her behavior on the grounds that she had shared “confidential information.”
She was placed on administrative leave for several months as the investigation was carried out before eventually being fired after a decades-long career at the school. Her conduct, she was told, was “unbecoming a teacher.”
The school claimed Manchester had violated “a purely fictitious School policy of confidentiality that simply did not exist,” the lawsuit states, accusing the defendants of engaging in “invidious and egregious viewpoint discrimination violative of the First Amendment.”
The suit was filed on Nov. 11 in a Massachusetts federal court.
MassResistance reported that the parents of the female student also filed a federal lawsuit against the school district in April 2022. That lawsuit was dismissed but is on appeal, according to the outlet.
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