Pennsylvania School District Settles With Mom After Secretly Calling Her Daughter A Boy

A Pennsylvania school district is ending a more than year-and-a-half-long legal battle with a mother who accused it of going behind her back and secretly treating her daughter like a boy, a local media outlet reported.

Michelle Landerer’s attorneys filed documents in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on November 24, saying they had reached a settlement with the Dover Area School District, according to Pennsylvania-based news outlet WHP TV. Landerer accused the district in an April 3, 2024, lawsuit of calling his daughter “Caleb” and using male pronouns without Landerer’s permission and only learned about it through a conversation his son had with a teacher, according to a copy of the complaint released by the Campaign for Child and Parent Rights (CPRC). (RELATED: “Metastasizes Like Cancer” – Parents Across the Country Are Suing Schools Over Clandestine Transitions)

“In August 2022, Ms. Landerer first learned that OG had been and was confirmed as a boy named ‘Caleb’ at school by district staff when her son, JG, then a student at the Dover Area School District, was approached by a teacher/district employee and asked, ‘How is your brother ‘Caleb’?'” the complaint states. “JG responded by stating that he did not have a brother named Caleb and the teacher informed him that his sister OG had asked for and was confirmed by district staff to be a boy named ‘Caleb’.”

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“JG then told his mother, Plaintiff Michelle Landerer, about his conversation with the teacher,” the complaint continues. “Without JG’s conversation with the district teacher, Ms. Landerer may never have learned that her vulnerable daughter was secretly and deliberately being affirmed as a boy (socially transitioning to a male identity) by district staff.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer P. Wilson of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a Trump appointee, allowed Landerer to pursue some of his claims in a ruling on February 13, 2025. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of parents challenging a Maryland school district’s refusal to allow them to opt out of having their children forced to participate in reading “LGBTQ+ inclusive” storybooks in June.

The Dover Area School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In Florida and Wisconsin, parents sued school districts in 2021 over efforts to socially transition children without parents’ knowledge, while legislation protecting parental rights in Florida became a flashpoint in 2022. A lawsuit was filed against another Florida school district after a 12-year-old girl allegedly attempted suicide in Florida while administrators were socially transitioning without informing her parents, Fox News reported.

The CPRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

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