In September 2020, January Littlejohn went to pick up her 13-year-old daughter from middle school. Littlejohn is a stay-at-home mother to three children and a licensed mental health counselor in Florida. So when her daughter informed her that the school administration had begun encouraging her to identify as transgender, Littlejohn was shocked.

Littlejohn’s daughter told her that school administrators had asked her about changing her name, which restroom she wished to use, and whether she wanted to sleep with boys or girls on school trips. According to the district, parents were to be cut out of the loop unless the 13-year-old gave her consent to their involvement; the district stated that “outing a student, especially to parents, can be very dangerous to the student’s health and well-being.”