Anthony Wagner - Attorney, Alliance Defending Freedom Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Boy.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Do I have a ton of questions on this one.
It's seven to fifty two on news radio seven forty
kt H. Let's talk to Anthony Wagner, attorney for the
Alliance Depending Freedom on HISD, parents suing school district for
refusing to stop treating their daughter as a boy. Anthony,
Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
How are you? Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Okay, this is insane reading through this story. Actually this
press release you guys released. First of all, thanks what
you guys do for us, all of us in this
great state of Texas and all over the country. So
were they lying all along the school district and everybody involved,
pretending that they were not doing the social transitioning of

(00:42):
the daughter.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So the story unfolded over multiple school years. The Osbornes
found out after the fact that they've been denied their
right to be the one making important decisions for their daughter,
you know, important decisions about her upbringing, education and healthcare,
which the Constitution gave in peace to them as her parents,
to make. But they found out was that even though

(01:05):
they had said multiple school years ago to refer to
their daughter by her given name by female pronouns when
asked by a theater teacher. They found out that that
wasn't happening. They were getting school work home with a
masculine name on it instead of their daughter's real name.
They elevated it to some other teachers, and eventually it
led at the beginning of the last school year to

(01:27):
meetings with the principal. They kept expressing their objections to
what was going on at the school, telling the school
what they expected, and their daughter's care and upbringing and
their instructions just appear to have not been honored. They
weren't being regarded by the school district, and it really
their story came out earlier this year actually at a

(01:49):
school board meeting that led to Governor Abbot calling on
TEA to investigate HISD for this. And now we found
this lawsuit on theirhas to propert their rights.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
How is this even legal or possible in this great
state of Texas with our laws.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, two things in response to that, you know, Number one,
I think people underestimate how widespread this problem is. We're
representing parents all over the country and similar sorts of stories,
and people think California, they think New York, and it
is happening in those places. But just as this case illustrates,
it's everywhere. We have clients in Indiana, in Michigan, we're

(02:25):
involved in cases in Florida. All over the country. This
is going on. But the other piece of it, to
your question, Texas has passed a new law that will
outlaw this for the next school year. So it's a
matter of making sure his is going to stop. So
is this.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Written in their handbook at HISD that somehow this is
how they do things. We're going to cover this up
from the parents, And is this the school board, the principal,
or you know, how is this Who's really behind this?

Speaker 1 (02:53):
So this is a widespread practice, you know this this
case is itself is involved. You know, we think, you know,
upwards to the different kind of teachers, administrators, counselors, that
sort of thing at Bellair High School. So it's widespread
enough that we do think it's part of an official policy.
Now it does it appear in the policy handbook, It's
a little unclear. They've attributed it to their non discrimination

(03:14):
policy and communications with us so far, so I think
they're doing it as a matter of official policy, but
I'm not sure that it's written down in a policy manual.
Why that is, I don't know. I can't answer that
for hist.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, how confident are you that you're going to prevail
on this case and how long do you see this
playing out before you get some kind of a decision.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
There's no hearings scheduled yet, so it'll take time for
all that to play out. You know, We've got a
number of cases like this going right now around the
country where we're pushing to protect parents like the Osborne. So,
like I said, we're representing a family in Michigan, We're
representing families in New York and New Jersey. So it's
a big picture fight and we're hoping, actually the Supreme

(03:56):
Court is considering a parent's rights case right now in
another context, that we should get a decision in that case.
Even this morning that had helped parents like you.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I was born Anthony Wagner, turning from the Alliance defending
for Room, Thank you for fighting this fight for us
and with us. Appreciate you very much this morning.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Thanks so much,