District accused of conspiring against boys who opposed trans student in locker room

The legal team representing two boys suspended for questioning a transgender classmate’s access to the boys’ locker room has now filed an amended federal complaint alleging new factual allegations and a new conspiracy charge, as it escalates its federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) in Virginia.

America First Legal and the Founding Freedoms Law Center, which represents the boys and their families, added new factual allegations to their previously submitted federal complaint on Wednesday, alleging that LCPS engaged in a conspiracy to retaliate against the boys. He also claimed there were inconsistencies in the district’s handling of its Title IX investigation that found the boys guilty of sexual harassment and suspended them for 10 days.

“Loudoun County Public Schools’ Title IX investigation into our clients inexplicably relied on non-credible evidence, ignored credible testimony, and failed to interview key individuals.
witnesses, suppressed potentially exculpatory video evidence, and failed to disclose LCPS’s own admissions that the allegations against our clients did not constitute sexual harassment,” said Ian Prior, senior attorney at America First Legal.

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Video from a locker room at Stone Bridge High School where a trans man was in a men’s restroom. (Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office)

“Worse still, and as we explain in the amended complaint, it appears that the school board was passing confidential information to a political action committee in an effort to further retaliate against our clients and their families. If this proves true at trial, and that is exactly what we intend to do, this entire matter is a travesty of justice, a waste of taxpayer dollars to defend, and everything that is wrong with the Loudoun County School Board and its wrong priorities placed.

Earlier this year, LCPS, located in Northern Virginia, launched a Title IX investigation into sexual harassment of two high school-age boys after they were filmed by a transgender-identified biological female in the boys’ locker room. The video caught them openly complaining about a biological girl who identified as a boy using their facilities.

Before taking the case to federal court, the boys and their parents sought to appeal the LCPS Title IX finding of sexual harassment in order to prevent the boys from being suspended or marked as sexual harassers on their permanent record. However, their appeal was ultimately denied by the district, leading the families to file suit in federal court.

On Wednesday, the families turned up the heat with new allegations not contained in their initial complaint, including that the district conspired with a local political action committee, Loudoun for All, to retaliate against the boys and their families.

The amended complaint also highlights inconsistencies in the District’s Title IX investigation, such as relying on non-credible evidence, ignoring credible evidence and testimony, misrepresenting evidence, failing to interview key witnesses, and failing to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence.

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Fox News Digital interviewed two Virginia parents whose children were accused of sexual harassment for complaining about a biological girl who identified as a boy using their locker room. (Fox News/istock)

The new complaint claims that days after the federal court issued a preliminary injunction blocking LCPS from suspending the boys or incorporating Title IX findings into their school records, the district contacted Loudoun For All and corroborated their comments in a press release and other messages containing “a number of false and defamatory allegations” used to generate a public narrative against the boys and their families. The press releases and other documents, such as a timeline of events in the case, were listed on the political action committee’s website, Facebook page, Reddit account, and Bluesky account, and were also said to contain insider and confidential information relating to the case cited in a later local media report titled “Locker Room Lawsuit Against LCPS Involves Misinformation, Loudoun4All Says.”

Loudoun For All’s press release accuses the boys’ parents of “orchestra[ing] a coordinated disinformation campaign, knowingly distorting facts to fuel political outrage,” and argued that they were trying to “inflame voters ahead of an election.”

He also claimed that 24 witnesses corroborated that the boys called the student, who identifies as transgender, a “girl,” “she,” “girl-boy,” and told them to “come out” while in the boy’s locker room. But, according to the boys’ lawyer, witnesses never corroborated these claims and the student’s accusations about when the harassment took place appear inconsistent.

Loudoun For All did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Meanwhile, the complaint also alleges that LCPS failed to disclose that a video cited as evidence in the district’s Title IX decision against the boys included the student saying “I got it” while laughing. He added that the district allegedly deleted another video taken by the student showing boys using or leaving the bathroom.

The amended complaint notes that despite the inconsistencies at times in the student’s story, the district’s Title IX investigators gave them “superior credibility.” Additionally, it asserts that a threat assessment of male students found no threat and that the district had previously concluded that a situation similar to the one at issue led the district to find no cause for sexual harassment under federal law.

LCPS declined to comment on the amended complaint, telling Fox News Digital that the district has a practice of not commenting on pending legal matters.

A transgender flag flies at an undisclosed location on an undisclosed date (left). A judge uses his gavel (right). (Getty Images/iStock)

Shortly after LCPS denied the boys’ Title IX appeal, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights concluded that LCPS violated Title IX by discriminating against boys on the basis of sex. Specifically, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights determined that LCPS “failed to meaningfully investigate sexual harassment complaints filed by two male students regarding the presence of a member of the opposite sex in intimate male-only spaces, but did thoroughly investigate the female student’s sexual harassment complaint regarding boys.”

Both of the boy’s parents told Fox News Digital in August that their sons tried to express their discomfort to school officials about the classmate using their locker room, but their complaints fell on deaf ears.

ASHBURN, VA – AUGUST 11: Supporters of Policy 8040 celebrate with signs as transgender protections were voted into school system policies during a school board meeting at the Loudoun County Public Schools administration building on August 11, 2021 in Ashburn, Virginia. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The Trump administration said LCPS would lose its federal funding if it did not rescind its suspensions and sexual harassment findings against the two boys, revise its initial findings and investigate the Title IX complaint the boys filed against the student for filming them in the locker room, which the boys’ attorneys say was ignored by the district.

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“The amended complaint we filed today reveals Loudoun County Public Schools’ sham targeting of these boys while ignoring numerous credible threats to their privacy and safety,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Founding Freedoms Law Center. “As has been alleged, a female student repeatedly filmed male students, including while they were going to the bathroom, but Loudoun did nothing. Instead, Loudoun appears to have conspired with an outside political organization to continue his attacks on these boys and their parents.”

The Trump administration also included LCPS among a list of five Northern Virginia school districts in violation of Title IX because of their locker room and restroom policies. As a result of the decision, federal funding for districts will now be “reimbursement only” and the Trump administration has initiated procedures to potentially end their funding, the Department of Education said over the summer.