January 21, 2025 • 13 mins
A LAWSUIT AGAINST POUDRE VALLEY MOVES FORWARD And I've got mom Erin Lee on to talk about it. Her daughter was "invited" to what she thought was an art club only to find out it was a gender and sexuality club. Mom wasn't happy and now she's sued, we'll find out more today at 2:30.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A mom of some kids in Pewter Valley schools who
had a situation arise that we're going to get into
it with Aaron Lee in just a second. That was outrageous,
and she decided to sue. The case was dismissed and
now they are appealing and joining me now Aaron Lee
and Brad Bergford, her attorney from Illumin Legal.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Aaron, I want to start with you first.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Let's go back to the beginning of the story here
for people that have never heard of this, and tell
me what happened, what has gotten you to the point
where we are now.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
May of twenty twenty one, our daughter came home from
sixth grade and proclaimed that she was transgender, and we
learned that we thought she had been in an art club.
She thought she was going to an art club, but
it was actually a gender and sexuality awareness club where
they told her if you're not completely comfortable in your
biological sex, that means you're trans and heavily emphasized don't
(00:56):
tell your parents about the meeting about the transgender identity.
They talked about explicit sexual themes. They brought in outside
presenters who are really really concerning that had nothing to
do with the school that essentially sexualized our daughter, talked
about polyamory, talked about puberty blockers, and you know, we're
(01:17):
lucky that our daughter came home and told us. But
there's actually another family on this lawsuit that you reference
who suffered in silence for a whole year. It wasn't
until we went public with our story a year later
that they were able to connect the dots and learn
that their daughter, who had attempted suicide because of this grooming,
had been in these secret club meetings.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So you decided to fight back because not only did
they do this behind your back, and they actively worked
and told your daughter and other kids to not tell
their parents right to like basically why about what was
going on and keep everything secret. That is appalling to me.
So you decided to sue on what grounds?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did you? First of all?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, Well, the role of the club was what you
hear and hear keep in here. So right off the bat,
they set the precedent that we don't tell parents about
this meeting, We don't tell anyone about this meeting. And
it's just nothing I've ever experienced in life was so
violating as learning that our daughter had been groomed, sexualized,
taught to mistrust us, and they took her normal pubescent
(02:24):
discomfort and made her believe that she had been born
in the wrong body, that she was transgender. And so
immediately we knew that our rights as parents had been violated.
This was a secret club and they intentionally kept us
in the dark. So that's the grounds of the lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So the lawsuit was dismissed initially, and I'm going to
bring in your attorney, Brad Bergford right now from Illumin Legal.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So Brad, what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The case is dismissed in Colorado, and then what happened
after that.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, the case was dismissed on technical grounds having to
do purportedly with the uh sufficiency of the complaint and
weather under rule twelve by six, the pleadings and the
complaint raised the right to relief above the speculative level
level and adequately pled adequately pled the case. And so
(03:18):
it was a very technical basis on which the complaint
was dismissed. And we we believed that the court was
incorrect in dismissing the case with respect to the court,
but we appealed to the Tenth Circuit when the court
denied us an opportunity to to amend the complaint to
(03:39):
to make it conform with what the court appeared to
be looking for in terms of the pleating. But the
bottom line is the plant the complaint was not dismissed
on substance of grounds.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So let me ask you this, is it common for
a the court to come down and say, we're gonna
dismiss this on a technical ground, but you can make
this change and then it will be acceptable.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Was there denial of that for you unusual?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Well, it's really common for courts to permit, whether they
invite an amendment to the complaint or just permit one's
common that one occurs. And in this instance, we filed
a thorough motion to amend the complaint, and we filed
along with it as an exhibit, the proposed amended complaints.
(04:28):
And the court said it would be futile to amend
the complaint because you still don't have what you need.
In this case apparently doesn't have what it needs to proceed.
So that was the attitude that the trial court judge
took to the case.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So what happened when you argued the case, Because you
just argued the case in front of the Tenth Court
for Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. You won't know they're
a result for several months, many months.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
How did the arguments go, what kind of questioning did
you get.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
From the justices, and what can you glean from that?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Certainly, well, it's really important to understand, first of all,
that we have brought this case on the on the
proposition that under the law fits, parents are presumed to
act in the best interests of their children. And so
the best interest standard that the Supreme Court has applied
in a number of cases, particularly in Troxel versus Granville,
(05:25):
which is a two thousand Supreme Court case, really gives
great deference to the rights of parents when making determinations
about what's best for the children. And then and so,
what the parents, like the Leese and the other uh
the other plaintiffs in the case have experienced is that
(05:46):
the schools saying, actually, we're going to keep this a
secret from you because we believe we know better than
you do. And so they even the schools government schools
have inserted themselves between child and parents, and they've said
things like, you know, we're going to have these conversations,
but your parents might not be safe to have these
conversations with, So it's best if you just keep these
(06:09):
between you and us, because we're always safe. And so
they've created not only a secrecy between themselves and the
children that excludes the parents, but then they have also
created a division between the children and the parents that
allows them even greater I think greater ability the schools,
that is, to act in the child's lives and the
(06:32):
children's lives and to continue to say things to these
kids that are probably best left in the province of
the parents. And certainly, in any event, the parents should
be the ones to decide if this is their province.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
This is the biggest aspect of what schools are doing
with gender dysphoria is the assumption of guilt.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
To your point, they assume.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Every parent is going to become an abusive, horrible They're
gonna throw the kids out on the street. The street's
gonna have nothing, kids gonna have nothing left if.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The kid is honest with their parent.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And that assumes abuse, It assumes bad parenting, unfit parenting.
To your point, to use your language, and this goes
well beyond gender identity issues. These are things that the
school is inserting itself into making decisions about where they've
done no due diligence, they've done No, you've never been
able to defend yourself Aaron in class and say, you know,
(07:29):
of course I would love my daughter regardless.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
They just roll with this. So this particular issue.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Does have far reaching implications. Or am I reading too
much into it?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, It's what I like to call guilty until proven innocent.
There's this assumption that all parents are going to be
abusive and that they don't know what's best for their
own children, but the school does. And you know, one
of the heartening things today was that many parents like
us showed up. Not parents that are plaintifs in the case,
but parents like us who've had their children secretly transitioned
by their public school, some parents who've lost custody completely,
(08:02):
some children who are still, you know, completely caught in
this belief that they've been born in the wrong body,
and all of the parents have the same experience. It's
not just in the Puter school district. It's a widespread
issue that public schools are assuming parents are guilty until
proven innocent and leaving us in the dark about a
serious psychosocial issue that parents are best equipped to handle
(08:26):
with their own children.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And more importantly, parents are responsible if they medicalize their children,
then they are going to have to bear the responsibilities
of that, whereas a teacher is they don't have to
take care of any of that, you know, medicalization kind
of stuff, brod. Are there other areas where this if
you get a favorable ruling and this moves forward, are
there other areas that school should be concerned about that
(08:52):
they could also be affected by a positive ruling?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
For you guys in this case.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Where we've asked the schools or the courts to do
with respect to the schools and the school's relationship with
children is to really recognize that the parental relationship is
the primary relationship between that children have. And so we
also haven't predicated our entire case on there being a
(09:18):
medical issue or a mental health issue, or any other
particular kind of issue. Our whole point is parents get
to decide what's in the best interests of the children,
and so really a favorable ruling in this case for
these children and these parents would translate to favorable rulings
for all children and parents in the state of Colorado.
And where the rub comes and where the law meets
(09:40):
politics is that in situations where, for instance, the state
of Colorado has made the age of consent for mental
health treatment twelve, and so twelve year olds can control
the mental health treatment that they get, they can direct it,
and they can even do that to the exclusion of
the knowledge of their parents. And so there could be
some conflict down the road just from a legal standpoint,
(10:02):
because the legislature is an act of that law, where
where you know, the rights of the parents are again
kind of front and center. But this ruling or this
decision by the court is really important because it will,
it will for all of the Tenth Circuit control what
(10:23):
parents are able to do in terms of directing and
controlling the upbringing of their children. And make no mistake,
this school district was not doing something that had anything
to do with academics, anything to do with pedagogy. This
was purely about social engineering and the any any intimation
contrary that is simply not to be believed on its face.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm talking with Aaron Lee, who assued the Pewoter Valley
School District after her daughter was indoctrinated and what she
thought was an art club and told she was transgender,
and Aaron decided.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
To fight back. This case is really.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Fascinating to me because we've seen this sort of mission
creep by schools for a very long time, and there's
there's a big difference. In my college, Jimmy Seckenberger used
a great example for this. There's a big difference before
between encouraging children to establish a good relationship with a
teacher at school that they feel comfortable with. That that
(11:22):
kind of thing happens naturally where everybody had the teachers
they loved, right, And it's quite a different thing when
the schools have decided to subsume parental rights to some
you know, fad ideology that is happening right now. This
is really kind of scary when you get right down
to it. I mean, this is a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And to add to Brad's point, he talked about the
bill nineteen eleven twenty that lowered the age of mental.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Health care to twelve.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Our legislature has now compounded upon that law, so a
lot of parents don't know. In twenty twenty three, they
passed the law ten O three, which now mandates the
mental health survey of all six twelfth graders and the
results go to the school, not the parents, and if
the child is deemed high risk, then they're referred to
the state's mental health program called Eye Matter. Now I
(12:10):
did a little dig and I took the survey. I
was deemed high risk. I followed the link, and all
of the subscribed therapists were sex work positive and LGBTQ affirming.
So they are literally putting into law that our children
are being screened for their mental health behind our back
and then referred to doctors without our knowledge if the
(12:30):
school or the state determines that they are high risk.
So they've continued to build upon these laws, and it
just seems to get worse and worse every legislative session.
So there's a lot writing on this lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Brad, I'll let you have the final word.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
When do you expect to hear and what happens if
you get an affirmative ruling, what happens next?
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Well, I don't have any idea when we'll hear. These
rulings can can happen then a matter of several months,
they can they can happen in a year. It's it's
anybody's guest. But when the ruling comes in, somebody is
going to appeal this case to the Supreme Court, So
you know, stay buckled in because this is this one's
going to go considerably longer, especially if the US Supreme
(13:13):
Court takes the case.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
That's Brad Bergford from the Illuminate Legal Team for Aaron
Lee mom and fighter. Aaron. I appreciate you making this
fight because it is going to have, as we just said,
far reaching implications, and you're doing this for all parents everywhere,
and I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Thank you, and no matter the outcome, I will keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
All right, Aaron, Brad, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You bet, Thank you.
A mom of some kids in Pewter Valley schools who
had a situation arise that we're going to get into
it with Aaron Lee in just a second. That was outrageous,
and she decided to sue. The case was dismissed and
now they are appealing and joining me now Aaron Lee
and Brad Bergford, her attorney from Illumin Legal.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Aaron, I want to start with you first.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Let's go back to the beginning of the story here
for people that have never heard of this, and tell
me what happened, what has gotten you to the point
where we are now.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
May of twenty twenty one, our daughter came home from
sixth grade and proclaimed that she was transgender, and we
learned that we thought she had been in an art club.
She thought she was going to an art club, but
it was actually a gender and sexuality awareness club where
they told her if you're not completely comfortable in your
biological sex, that means you're trans and heavily emphasized don't
(00:56):
tell your parents about the meeting about the transgender identity.
They talked about explicit sexual themes. They brought in outside
presenters who are really really concerning that had nothing to
do with the school that essentially sexualized our daughter, talked
about polyamory, talked about puberty blockers, and you know, we're
(01:17):
lucky that our daughter came home and told us. But
there's actually another family on this lawsuit that you reference
who suffered in silence for a whole year. It wasn't
until we went public with our story a year later
that they were able to connect the dots and learn
that their daughter, who had attempted suicide because of this grooming,
had been in these secret club meetings.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So you decided to fight back because not only did
they do this behind your back, and they actively worked
and told your daughter and other kids to not tell
their parents right to like basically why about what was
going on and keep everything secret. That is appalling to me.
So you decided to sue on what grounds?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did you? First of all?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, Well, the role of the club was what you
hear and hear keep in here. So right off the bat,
they set the precedent that we don't tell parents about
this meeting, We don't tell anyone about this meeting. And
it's just nothing I've ever experienced in life was so
violating as learning that our daughter had been groomed, sexualized,
taught to mistrust us, and they took her normal pubescent
(02:24):
discomfort and made her believe that she had been born
in the wrong body, that she was transgender. And so
immediately we knew that our rights as parents had been violated.
This was a secret club and they intentionally kept us
in the dark. So that's the grounds of the lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So the lawsuit was dismissed initially, and I'm going to
bring in your attorney, Brad Bergford right now from Illumin Legal.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So Brad, what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The case is dismissed in Colorado, and then what happened
after that.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, the case was dismissed on technical grounds having to
do purportedly with the uh sufficiency of the complaint and
weather under rule twelve by six, the pleadings and the
complaint raised the right to relief above the speculative level
level and adequately pled adequately pled the case. And so
(03:18):
it was a very technical basis on which the complaint
was dismissed. And we we believed that the court was
incorrect in dismissing the case with respect to the court,
but we appealed to the Tenth Circuit when the court
denied us an opportunity to to amend the complaint to
(03:39):
to make it conform with what the court appeared to
be looking for in terms of the pleating. But the
bottom line is the plant the complaint was not dismissed
on substance of grounds.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So let me ask you this, is it common for
a the court to come down and say, we're gonna
dismiss this on a technical ground, but you can make
this change and then it will be acceptable.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Was there denial of that for you unusual?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Well, it's really common for courts to permit, whether they
invite an amendment to the complaint or just permit one's
common that one occurs. And in this instance, we filed
a thorough motion to amend the complaint, and we filed
along with it as an exhibit, the proposed amended complaints.
(04:28):
And the court said it would be futile to amend
the complaint because you still don't have what you need.
In this case apparently doesn't have what it needs to proceed.
So that was the attitude that the trial court judge
took to the case.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So what happened when you argued the case, Because you
just argued the case in front of the Tenth Court
for Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. You won't know they're
a result for several months, many months.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
How did the arguments go, what kind of questioning did
you get.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
From the justices, and what can you glean from that?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Certainly, well, it's really important to understand, first of all,
that we have brought this case on the on the
proposition that under the law fits, parents are presumed to
act in the best interests of their children. And so
the best interest standard that the Supreme Court has applied
in a number of cases, particularly in Troxel versus Granville,
(05:25):
which is a two thousand Supreme Court case, really gives
great deference to the rights of parents when making determinations
about what's best for the children. And then and so,
what the parents, like the Leese and the other uh
the other plaintiffs in the case have experienced is that
(05:46):
the schools saying, actually, we're going to keep this a
secret from you because we believe we know better than
you do. And so they even the schools government schools
have inserted themselves between child and parents, and they've said
things like, you know, we're going to have these conversations,
but your parents might not be safe to have these
conversations with, So it's best if you just keep these
(06:09):
between you and us, because we're always safe. And so
they've created not only a secrecy between themselves and the
children that excludes the parents, but then they have also
created a division between the children and the parents that
allows them even greater I think greater ability the schools,
that is, to act in the child's lives and the
(06:32):
children's lives and to continue to say things to these
kids that are probably best left in the province of
the parents. And certainly, in any event, the parents should
be the ones to decide if this is their province.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
This is the biggest aspect of what schools are doing
with gender dysphoria is the assumption of guilt.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
To your point, they assume.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Every parent is going to become an abusive, horrible They're
gonna throw the kids out on the street. The street's
gonna have nothing, kids gonna have nothing left if.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The kid is honest with their parent.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And that assumes abuse, It assumes bad parenting, unfit parenting.
To your point, to use your language, and this goes
well beyond gender identity issues. These are things that the
school is inserting itself into making decisions about where they've
done no due diligence, they've done No, you've never been
able to defend yourself Aaron in class and say, you know,
(07:29):
of course I would love my daughter regardless.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
They just roll with this. So this particular issue.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Does have far reaching implications. Or am I reading too
much into it?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, It's what I like to call guilty until proven innocent.
There's this assumption that all parents are going to be
abusive and that they don't know what's best for their
own children, but the school does. And you know, one
of the heartening things today was that many parents like
us showed up. Not parents that are plaintifs in the case,
but parents like us who've had their children secretly transitioned
by their public school, some parents who've lost custody completely,
(08:02):
some children who are still, you know, completely caught in
this belief that they've been born in the wrong body,
and all of the parents have the same experience. It's
not just in the Puter school district. It's a widespread
issue that public schools are assuming parents are guilty until
proven innocent and leaving us in the dark about a
serious psychosocial issue that parents are best equipped to handle
(08:26):
with their own children.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And more importantly, parents are responsible if they medicalize their children,
then they are going to have to bear the responsibilities
of that, whereas a teacher is they don't have to
take care of any of that, you know, medicalization kind
of stuff, brod. Are there other areas where this if
you get a favorable ruling and this moves forward, are
there other areas that school should be concerned about that
(08:52):
they could also be affected by a positive ruling?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
For you guys in this case.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Where we've asked the schools or the courts to do
with respect to the schools and the school's relationship with
children is to really recognize that the parental relationship is
the primary relationship between that children have. And so we
also haven't predicated our entire case on there being a
(09:18):
medical issue or a mental health issue, or any other
particular kind of issue. Our whole point is parents get
to decide what's in the best interests of the children,
and so really a favorable ruling in this case for
these children and these parents would translate to favorable rulings
for all children and parents in the state of Colorado.
And where the rub comes and where the law meets
(09:40):
politics is that in situations where, for instance, the state
of Colorado has made the age of consent for mental
health treatment twelve, and so twelve year olds can control
the mental health treatment that they get, they can direct it,
and they can even do that to the exclusion of
the knowledge of their parents. And so there could be
some conflict down the road just from a legal standpoint,
(10:02):
because the legislature is an act of that law, where
where you know, the rights of the parents are again
kind of front and center. But this ruling or this
decision by the court is really important because it will,
it will for all of the Tenth Circuit control what
(10:23):
parents are able to do in terms of directing and
controlling the upbringing of their children. And make no mistake,
this school district was not doing something that had anything
to do with academics, anything to do with pedagogy. This
was purely about social engineering and the any any intimation
contrary that is simply not to be believed on its face.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm talking with Aaron Lee, who assued the Pewoter Valley
School District after her daughter was indoctrinated and what she
thought was an art club and told she was transgender,
and Aaron decided.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
To fight back. This case is really.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Fascinating to me because we've seen this sort of mission
creep by schools for a very long time, and there's
there's a big difference. In my college, Jimmy Seckenberger used
a great example for this. There's a big difference before
between encouraging children to establish a good relationship with a
teacher at school that they feel comfortable with. That that
(11:22):
kind of thing happens naturally where everybody had the teachers
they loved, right, And it's quite a different thing when
the schools have decided to subsume parental rights to some
you know, fad ideology that is happening right now. This
is really kind of scary when you get right down
to it. I mean, this is a really big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
And to add to Brad's point, he talked about the
bill nineteen eleven twenty that lowered the age of mental.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Health care to twelve.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Our legislature has now compounded upon that law, so a
lot of parents don't know. In twenty twenty three, they
passed the law ten O three, which now mandates the
mental health survey of all six twelfth graders and the
results go to the school, not the parents, and if
the child is deemed high risk, then they're referred to
the state's mental health program called Eye Matter. Now I
(12:10):
did a little dig and I took the survey. I
was deemed high risk. I followed the link, and all
of the subscribed therapists were sex work positive and LGBTQ affirming.
So they are literally putting into law that our children
are being screened for their mental health behind our back
and then referred to doctors without our knowledge if the
(12:30):
school or the state determines that they are high risk.
So they've continued to build upon these laws, and it
just seems to get worse and worse every legislative session.
So there's a lot writing on this lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Brad, I'll let you have the final word.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
When do you expect to hear and what happens if
you get an affirmative ruling, what happens next?
Speaker 4 (12:50):
Well, I don't have any idea when we'll hear. These
rulings can can happen then a matter of several months,
they can they can happen in a year. It's it's
anybody's guest. But when the ruling comes in, somebody is
going to appeal this case to the Supreme Court, So
you know, stay buckled in because this is this one's
going to go considerably longer, especially if the US Supreme
(13:13):
Court takes the case.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
That's Brad Bergford from the Illuminate Legal Team for Aaron
Lee mom and fighter. Aaron. I appreciate you making this
fight because it is going to have, as we just said,
far reaching implications, and you're doing this for all parents everywhere,
and I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Thank you, and no matter the outcome, I will keep fighting.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
All right, Aaron, Brad, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You bet, Thank you.
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