Lawyers are seeking answers over an alleged attempt by a Texas high school to routinely use a masculine name and male pronouns for a biological teenage girl, despite parental concerns.
Lawyers wrote to Texas’ biggest school system after parents suspected their kid was surreptitiously socially transitioning at school.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative legal advocacy group, sent a demand letter to Bellaire High School (BHS), which is part of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), on behalf of the student’s parents, requesting records from the school in accordance with Texas’ open records law.
The ADF letter states that in the autumn of 2023, BHS workers started referring to the female student by a masculine name and male pronouns without her parents’ knowledge or agreement. In December 2023, the parents noticed a male name on their daughter’s coursework and quickly informed her professors to cease using that name.
In response, their girls’ teachers informed them that she would only be referred to by her legal name and female pronouns. However, despite instructors’ initial promises, they learned a few months later that school personnel were once again using masculine names and pronouns, according to the letter. The parents urged the high school personnel to stop again, and they said they would, but they reportedly didn’t.
According to the letter, the student’s parents met with Bellaire’s principal, Michael Niggli, in September 2024 and requested assurance that school workers refer to their daughter solely by her given name and female pronouns. However, according to the ADF, Niggli advised them to adopt a “middle ground” answer for what her name would be at school.
The parents then followed up in writing, contacting Principal Niggli to make it clear that HISD staff should only use their daughter’s given name and female pronouns. He answered that “there will be no emails with directives to call [your daughter] by any particular name,” according to the letter. Principal Niggli also allegedly assured the parents that a school counselor had transmitted their directions to teachers, but ADF contends that since teachers had previously disobeyed identical orders from them, they are not certain that this is still the case.
ADF has asked HISD to reassure the student’s parents that its personnel are following their instructions about their daughter. They are also requesting information pertaining to HISD workers’ gender-identity-related usage of preferred or chosen names or pronouns for pupils, such as policy, practice, or guideline manuals, training presentations, and related documentation. The letter’s deadline, given by ADF, is Friday, March 21.
Vincent Wagner, senior attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Parental Rights, told Fox News Digital that if answers and data are not supplied, legal action may be taken.
“If that’s not what happens, then we have to consider what else is on the table and that could be litigation,” he told reporters. “It’s still up in the air what the next steps would be and that will depend on the specifics of HISD’s response.”
The tale gained traction when a representative from the parental advocacy organization Moms for Liberty appeared at an HISD school board meeting last month on behalf of the girl’s mother, who wishes to stay nameless.
“On the first day of ninth grade, my daughter’s theater teacher sent home an information sheet for us to fill out,” the Moms for Liberty spokesperson said last month on behalf of the mother. “The second line on the page inquired about her pronouns. Multiple instructors began addressing her by a different name and pronoun. One instructor even went so far as to take out my daughter’s legal name from her paper and put her preferred name in red ink.
“This happened without our knowledge, and definitely without our approval. This contradicts our Christian beliefs, the advise of her therapist, and, simply, basic sense. We spoke with her instructors, counselors, and administration, but to no effect. “HISD is purposefully and secretively transitioning minors,” she said before her time was up and her microphone was cut.
The public remark drew the attention of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who directed the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to launch an inquiry into the accusations.
“No parent should have to go through this. Another reason why parents should have school choice. “No school should be involved in ‘transitioning’ a child,” Abbott wrote on X. “If this is not already illegal, it will be after this session.”
Wagner said that ADF and the student’s parents are mainly looking for important papers that should be accessible under the Texas Public Information Act, which the parents reportedly submitted many times.
Fox News Digital reached out to the school system for comment.
“One responsive document showed that teachers were continuing to refer to their daughter by the masculine name even after our clients met with Principal Niggli,” according to the ADF letter. “So to understand exactly what HISD employees had been doing with their daughter, they sent a second public records request on January 3, 2025.”
“In response to that request, HISD initially said it had over 18,000 responsive documents,” according to the letter. “A month later, it replied that it had no relevant papers and closed the request. It never delivered a single document in response to that second request, much alone an explanation for the disparity.
Wagner noted that HISD’s failure to comply with the Texas Public Information Act might result in litigation over the school district’s responsibility to parents.
“Given the pattern of failure and the existing ambiguity, we ask that HISD promptly assure us and our clients that HISD employees will refer to their daughter only by her given name and female pronouns,” according to the letter. “Please also send us copies of any correspondence sent instructing HISD employees on how to address our client’s daughter.”
Wagner said that ADF is also seeking clarity on HISD’s policy on transgender students, as well as any other advice in the absence of a board-level policy.
“What practices does HISD follow in these sorts of situations, and also how are teachers trained to handle them?” inquired the gentleman. “When you notify instructors that a student is dealing with gender and has questions, what do you advise teachers to do? What instructions are provided to instructors and other personnel for dealing with circumstances like these?”
HISD educates about 189,000 students across 274 campuses and is one of Houston’s major employers, with around 27,000 workers, according to the district’s website.
