Jane Doe is a transgender student at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. She was a student in Professor Meriwether’s Political Philosophy class in the spring 2018 semester. Because of his religious beliefs, Professor Meriwether refused to use female honorifics and pronouns when referring to Jane in class. Jane filed a Title IX complaint with the university. After completing an investigation into Professor Meriwether’s conduct, the university decided to place a discipline...
Our Voices
Jane Doe was an 11-year-old transgender girl in the Highland Local Schools. For the prior three years, the District refused to treat her as female for all purposes, causing her to be ostracized and leading to frequent bullying and humiliation by teachers, staff, and students. Following an investigation, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that the District is violating Title IX. But instead of trying to remedy that situation, the school district sued the federal government, alleging the...
NCLR and Joshua Langdon represented three transgender youth and their families in a lawsuit against Warren County Judge Joseph Kirby. The complaint alleged that Judge Kirby violated the United States Constitution by denying name changes to transgender youth based on his biases about transgender people. Judge Kirby moved to dismiss the case. On October 29, 2018, the District Court held that Judge Kirby could not be sued for exercising his judicial discretion in denying name changes to...
NCLR, along with Gerhardstein & Branch and the Law Office of Scott Knox, represented Rachel Dovel in a lawsuit against her employer, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, for denying her access to medically necessary transition-related care. Ms. Dovel argued that the ban on sex affirming surgery discriminated against her based on sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and also violated the...
T.L. and D.F., a lesbian couple, planned to have a child together. D.F. gave birth to their child, J.D.F. In order to protect the child’s relationship with both parents, the couple entered into a court-approved joint custody agreement. Several years later, T.L. and D.F. separated and agreed to share custody. But in 2004, Ohio’s anti-LGBTQ constitutional amendment excluding same-sex couples from marriage was passed. D.F. began to prevent T.L. from seeing their child, arguing that...
