Pennsylvania School District Settles With Mom After Secretly Calling Her Daughter A Boy

A Pennsylvania school district is ending a legal battle stretching over a year and a half with a mother who accused it of going behind her back and secretly treating her daughter as a boy, a local news outlet reported.

Attorneys for Michelle Landerer filed documents with the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Nov. 24, saying they had reached a settlement with the Dover Area School District, according to Pennsylvania-based outlet WHP TV. Landerer accused the district in an April 3, 2024, lawsuit of referring to her daughter as “Caleb” and using male pronouns without Landerer’s permission and only learned of it due to a conversation her son had with a teacher, according to a copy of the complaint posted by the Child and Parental Rights Campaign (CPRC).

“In August 2022, Ms. Landerer first learned that O.G. had been and was being affirmed as a boy named ‘Caleb’ at school by personnel of the District when her son, J.G., then a student at Dover Area School District, was approached by a teacher/employee of the District and asked, ‘How is your brother ‘Caleb’ doing?’” the complaint said. “J.G. responded by stating that he did not have a brother named Caleb and the teacher informed him that his sister O.G. had requested and was being affirmed by District staff as a boy named ‘Caleb’.”

“J.G. then told his mother, Plaintiff Michelle Landerer, about his conversation with the teacher,” the complaint continued. “Had it not been for J.G.’s conversation with the District teacher, Ms. Landerer might never have learned that her vulnerable daughter was being secretly and deliberately affirmed as a boy (socially transitioned to a male identity) by District personnel.”

United States District Judge Jennifer P. Wilson of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a Trump appointee, allowed Landerer to pursue some of her claims in a Feb. 13, 2025 decision. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of parents challenging a Maryland school district’s refusal to allow them to opt out of having their children being forced to participate in reading “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks in June.

The Dover Area School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Parents sued school districts in 2021 over efforts to transition children socially without the parents’ knowledge in Florida and Wisconsin, while legislation protecting parental rights in Florida became a flashpoint in 2022. A lawsuit was filed against another Florida school district after a 12-year-old girl reportedly attempted suicide in Florida while administrators were carrying out a social transition without informing her parents, Fox News reported.

CPRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

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