HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) | A former student has sued a north Alabama school district, saying she was harassed and physically assaulted because she was transgender, while administrators turned a blind eye.
Zelda Menefee filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Huntsville city school system, former superintendent Casey Wardynski and eight other teachers and school employees.
The 19-year-old Menefee says she was bullied by students and teachers at Grissom High School until she finally quit school in May 2016 and earned a high school equivalency diploma.
Menefee began transitioning from male to female in summer 2014, the lawsuit states. She changed her first name, changed identity documents to indicate a female gender, began wearing female clothing and using female restrooms. She enrolled at Grissom as a freshman in January 2015, the complaint states.
“Every child deserves the right to feel safe at school,” attorney Abbey Clarkson said in a statement. “Zelda Menefee was deprived of that right. She woke up every single school day for over a year knowing she would likely be bullied, harassed, ridiculed, and discriminated against at school that day.”
Huntsville school district spokesman Keith Ward told local news outlets that he can’t comment on pending lawsuits.
Menefee was placed in the boys’ physical education class, where students commented about her clothes and harassed her, the lawsuit states. It goes on to say she reported at least two instances to the physical education teacher, who did nothing about it. Eventually, she says she was allowed to enroll in girls’ physical education, but the teacher wouldn’t let her dress in the girls’ locker room or have a locker with the other girls in the class.
Menefee also said she was not allowed to use female restrooms at the school and was later given permission to use the nurse’s restroom. The complaint states that an administrator once made her change out of a knee-length skirt she wore to school into a pair of athletic pants and a T-shirt.
Administrators refused to investigate complaints about bullying, discrimination and assault, Menefee says. The lawsuit says she was specifically threatened for being transgender, punched in the stomach by students passing in the hallway and had food thrown at her during lunch. One student assaulted Menefee and pulled off her wig in the hallway, but administrators did nothing, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says teachers and students refused to call Menefee by her chosen female name and told her she wasn’t a girl. One teacher called her “sir,” according to the complaint. She was pictured in the yearbook under the name James Menefee, despite asking that she not be pictured in the yearbook at all, and she says the school cancelled a beauty pageant because she wanted to participate.
Menefee eventually quit Grissom in May 2016, stating on her exit interview form that the reason was “dislike of school experience.”
The lawsuit seeks a jury trial on allegations that the school suppressed Menefee’s First Amendment rights, violated Title IX anti-discrimination guarantees, and failed to supervise and train school staff. Menefee demands money damages.
