A Colorado family’s objection to their 11-year-old daughter being assigned the same hotel room—and bed—as a transgender student during a school trip to Washington, D.C., has escalated into a federal legal battle over parental rights and school transparency.
According to Fox News, Serena Wailes, the mother, claims the school failed to inform her that one of the students in the room was biologically male.
“They said that [they didn’t want us to talk about it] because they wanted to protect the privacy of the other student. And our thoughts are, ‘Well, what about the privacy of our daughter?’” Wailes said
According to the Wailes family, their daughter only discovered the situation upon arrival on the 2023 trip and immediately called her mother, who was serving as a chaperone, expressing distress.
While the school ultimately allowed her to switch rooms, she was allegedly instructed not to discuss the reason for the change—a move her parents say reflects a broader culture of secrecy within Jefferson County Public Schools.
“We didn’t talk to the school after this. We looked at the different options, and we felt like the best course was taking legal action to make a difference,” Joe Wailes, the father, told The Ingraham Angle on Tuesday. “There’s several issues going on within the JeffCo schools where we didn’t feel like we’d be heard. We felt like we needed to do something to really take a bigger action.”
The conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed an opening brief Wednesday in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, representing four families.
The suit claims the district permits biologically male students to share overnight accommodations with girls based solely on gender identity, without notifying parents or obtaining consent.
“This is about protecting parental rights,” said ADF attorney Matt Sharp. “We want parents to be informed about bad policies like this, and we want their request to be honored. When they ask schools, ‘Don’t force our daughter to share a room with a boy,’ the school needs to honor that.”
Jefferson County Public Schools provided a statement in September, noting they disagreed with several claims in the lawsuit and emphasizing that families have the ultimate choice in overnight programs.
“We take these issues seriously, and we follow all Colorado state laws when it comes to how we treat students, staff, and families,” the district said.
The case now heads to the 10th Circuit, marking a significant legal test over parental authority and school policies on gender identity in educational settings.
