An Oklahoma school is being sued by the mother of a young girl who was physically assaulted by a trans-identified male student in the female washroom. Theresa Gooden filed the lawsuit on May 25 in the Oklahoma County District Court on behalf of her 15-year-old daughter who was attacked and “severely beaten” by a 17-year-old trans-identified male student in the girls’ bathroom.
The incident referenced in the suit is known to have taken place on October 26, 2022, at Edmond Memorial High School. According to the suit, the school district was aware that the transgender student, who is male but identifies as “female,” used the restroom reserved for girls in contravention of state law.
Reduxx previously broke the news of the incident after obtaining the police report associated with the assault.
According to the police report, on October 26, at approximately 8 a.m., an officer responded to reports of a fight that had broken out at Memorial High School. Upon arriving, the officer found a female student with injuries to her face and head at the nurse’s station.
The officer noted the first victim, who was 15, had “several red areas” on her face, and that both of her eyes were beginning to swell. An interview was conducted with the victim, whose full name was redacted due to her age.
Reduxx has obtained a police report showing that two female students were assaulted by a trans-identified male student in the girls' restroom at Edmond Memorial High School in Oklahoma.
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) December 12, 2022
Both of the girls sustained injuries to the eyes, face, and head.https://t.co/RG14nhfSTL
The female student advised the officer that a 17-year-old trans-identified male student had approached her in the girls’ bathroom while she was talking with her friends. She explained that he had tried to talk to her and she had ignored him, at which point he began to get angry and asked if she “wanted to fight” while approaching her with balled fists.
The victim said that the trans-identified student then hit her in the face, and she indicated in her statement that she was not strong enough to fight back due to the force of the blow.
The transgender student pulled the girl’s hair and forced her to the ground, at which point he began to kick her in the face and punch her repeatedly. One witness to the incident described the attack as entirely disproportionate, with the girl being “knocked out clean on the floor” with no retaliation.
The victim’s friends, who had been in the restroom with her at the time, witnessed the incident and were pleading with the male student to stop his assault. One of the other female students attempted to intervene, and was punched twice on the left side of her face by the assailant.
The girl explained to the officer that she felt the need to try and defend her friend because she genuinely thought her life was at risk.
In an assessment of the victim’s injuries made by the school nurse, the girl was listed as having sustained injury to her eye, face and head “with a possible concussion.” The girl was experiencing headache, dizziness, blurry vision, and nausea at the time of the report.
The police report also contains a statement from the transgender student, which indicated he had initiated conversation with the victim because he was trying to “pay her back” for clothes he had stolen from her.
Following the police response to the incident, the transgender student was charged with Assault and Battery and Disorderly Conduct, and was handed summons on both counts. Reduxx received confirmation of the case’s details from Emily Ward, Edmond Police Department’s public information specialist.
According to the lawsuit, the transgender student had been removed from the school by police just days prior to the assault after making threats against the victim.
The lawsuit also cites an Oklahoma law passed in May of 2022, SB 615, which requires students at state public schools to use the facilities that correspond to their biological sex listed on their birth certificates, rather than their self-declared ‘gender identity.’
Due to the “negligent failure” of administrators to protect the female students from “severe physical and mental injuries, pain and suffering, and emotional distress,” plaintiff Gooden is seeking compensation of $75,000 to cover the costs of the legal action.
Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald addressed the assault in a YouTube video posted on December 17 last year. The video is unlisted, meaning it does not appear in a search and can only be accessed directly via a link.
Grunewald revealed that the male student who attacked the girls had just begun attending the school “a few days” prior to the assault in the restroom.
“When this student enrolled, the student enrolled as a female, and presented themself as a female, and so had been accepted as a female … You may ask yourself how can that happen?”
Grunewald continued: “It’s hard to explain, but if a parent comes in and enrolls their child as a certain gender, and when you look at that child by all social norms they look and present themselves as that gender, it’s not something that you would question. Also in high school, birth certificates are not required to start school. So there was no birth certificate in the (student’s) file at the time to verify one way or another.”
Superintendent Grunewald also pointed out that in addition to breaking the school’s policy against harming other students, the male student had broken a rule put in place in August 2022 “that says all students must go to the bathroom of their birth gender.”
She added that the student had been punished for both violations and is no longer attending Edmond Memorial High School.
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