Mat-Su Borough students will not be permitted to use the restrooms or locker rooms of the opposite sex, simply because they personally claim to identify as a member of that sex.

Thanks to a July 30 court ruling, Mat-Su Borough schools can continue to enforce a 2022 policy that requires students to use restrooms and locker room which correspond with their biological sex.

In a case brought by the ACLU of Alaska against the Mat-Su School District, Palmer Superior Court Judge Tom Jamgochian affirmed that the school district’s policy does not violate the equal protection or privacy provisions of the Alaska Constitution, but serves “an important governmental interest in safeguarding student privacy in intimate settings.”

The case involved a nine-year-old biological girl who lives with her parents and attends a local elementary school.

According to court documents, the girl’s parents claim she “exhibited gender nonconforming behavior from an early age.” This included preferring to play “trucks and construction equipment and expressed a dislike for pink and other traditionally feminine colors.”

The parents also asserted that the girl told them she felt like a boy on the inside. After this disclosure, the girl began using male pronouns and a new “male-identified” name, while keeping her hair short and wearing boy’s clothing.

In August 2023, after the girl began identifying as a boy, her parents transferred her to a new school for what her mother coined a “fresh start.”

After meeting with school officials, the family was told that school board policy barred the girl from using the boys’ bathroom. Instead, she was given the option of using either the girls’ communal restroom or the nurse’s bathroom.

“The court agrees with the Ninth Circuit that requiring children to expose their bodies to, or be exposed to the bodies of, students of the opposite biological sex infringe on their reasonable expectations of privacy.”

That wasn’t good enough, and the parents worked with the ACLU of Alaska to file a lawsuit, claiming the policy treated “transgender students differently from their peers and causes emotional and social harm.”

According to court documents, the school board policy came in response to “an MSBSD student who expressed concerns about disrobing in a locker room in the presence of someone who is of the opposite biological sex.”

At the time, many parents across the community were concerned upon hearing about the incident.

In his final ruling, Judge Jamgochian cited federal case law from the Ninth Circuit that recognizes that the “desire to shield one’s unclothed figure from [the] view of strangers, and particularly strangers of the opposite sex, is impelled by elementary self-respect and personal dignity.”

He also noted, “The universally accepted principle that protecting individual privacy may sometimes necessitate separation by sex is indisputable, especially for school age children who ‘are still developing, both emotionally and physically.’”

“The court agrees with the Ninth Circuit that requiring children to expose their bodies to, or be exposed to the bodies of, students of the opposite biological sex infringe on their reasonable expectations of privacy,” Judge Jamgochian wrote.

During the court proceedings, it was revealed that Dr. Randi Ettner, a clinical psychologist based in Illinois, was the person who initially diagnosed the young girl as having gender dysphoria. Her diagnosis, however, never involved a direct evaluation of the gender-confused girl, but instead relied on “medical records, behavioral descriptions, and academic literature.”

Dr. Ettner, who has a long history of transgender political activism, told the court that gender identity is “established early in life and is not a matter of choice, advocating that social transition, including use of facilities aligned with gender identity, is a low-risk, high-benefit intervention.” She also claimed that if schools don’t affirm a child’s gender identity it could lead to “depression, anxiety, and academic struggles.”

Dr. Ettner’s evaluation of the girl was undermined by the testimony of Dr. Stephen Levine, a clinical professor of psychiatry, who testified that any diagnosis of gender dysphoria requires a comprehensive, in-person evaluation involving the child and parents.

He criticized Dr. Ettner’s “certainty as premature and unsupported by neuroscience or rigorous psychiatric practice,” court documents note.

Dr. Levine noted that “gender identity in youth is not necessarily fixed, citing research suggesting many children who transition subsequently desist and return to the gender assigned at birth. He expressed concern that premature social transition can cause long-term psychological and developmental issues, potentially increasing the likelihood of medical interventions and internal conflict during puberty.”

Dr. Levine recommended a “family-centered approach emphasizing psychotherapy and preserving the child’s flexibility.”

While he acknowledged social transition is reversible, he characterized it as potentially psychologically invasive and warned against “overreliance on child-led identity decisions.”

In what appears to support Dr. Levine’s comments, the court record shows that by the end of 2023, a mental health provider evaluated the girl and found that she “is no longer enthusiastic about being transgender and has expressed disinterest in transgender-themed literature.”

The ACLU has stated that it is working with the student and her family in “considering further appeal options.”

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