Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) is embroiled in controversy once again. The latest scandal stems from an incident in which two male students expressed discomfort after a transgender-identifying biological female filmed them in the locker room. Those boys were suspended by LCPS. But now, the district is facing a lawsuit after being accused of mishandling, even manipulating, the case — including collaborating with local activists to tamper with evidence.

Attorneys from America First Legal (AFL) and the Founding Freedoms Law Center (FFLC) are representing the Stone Bridge High School students. They filed the suit on Wednesday, accusing “district officials of deleting at least one other recording the female student made of boys using the bathroom, leaking confidential information to a left-wing PAC that it says defamed the boys, and declining to discipline a Muslim student who was uncomfortable with a girl in the boys’ locker room, only two Christian ones,” The Daily Wire reported.

Allegedly, the trans-identifying girl in question made several contradictory claims concerning what happened and when. As time went on, details changed or grew increasingly vague. For example, she first claimed three boys “constantly screamed” at her, calling her “a ‘Boy-girl,’ ‘It,’ and ‘Girl Female.’” She claimed they “got in her face” and threatened to beat her up. But when asked about it later, she said she could “barely” remember what happened, including who it was that yelled at her.

According to the lawsuit, the school itself interviewed over a dozen teachers and students, and no one was able to verify that any inappropriate comments took place. Meanwhile, the district reportedly partnered with the activist group Loudoun 4 All to issue a press release that became the vehicle for defamatory statements about the boys. As part of the press release, the boys’ parents were accused of “orchestrat[ing] a coordinated campaign of disinformation, knowingly misrepresenting facts to fuel political outrage” and trying to “inflame voters ahead of an election.”

Notably, the boys’ punishment came after LCPS said it did a Title IX investigation — which the lawyers argued was “severely flawed.” The “Loudoun County Public Schools’ Title IX investigation into our clients inexplicably relied on non-credible evidence, ignored credible witness testimony, failed to interview key witnesses, deleted potentially exonerating video evidence, and failed to disclose LCPS’s own admission that the allegations against our clients did not constitute sexual harassment,” said AFL Senior Council Ian Prior.

“Making matters worse,” he continued, “as we set forth in the amended complaint, it appears that the school board was passing along confidential information to a political action committee for the purpose of further retaliating against our clients and their families. If proven true at trial, and we intend to do exactly that, this entire affair is a travesty of justice, a waste of taxpayer money to defend, and everything that is wrong with the Loudoun County School Board and its misplaced priorities.”

Before filing the lawsuit in federal court, “the boys and their parents sought to appeal LCPS’ Title IX sexual harassment finding to keep the boys from being suspended or marked as sexual harassers on their permanent record,” Fox News reported. However, this request was immediately denied by the district, leaving the families with no other choice but to take it to the next level.

According to a press release, the legal groups “have also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent LCPS from suspending the students and ultimately, to vindicate both students who LCPS has wrongly labeled as sexual harassers.” The lawyers regarded this as only the latest incident of LCPS promoting transgender ideology, and a quick glance at LCPS’s history proves this to be true.

One prominent example is from 2021, when a biological boy wearing a skirt assaulted a female student in the women’s locker room at Stone Bridge. That boy was then sent to another Loudoun County school, Broad Run High School, where he went on to commit the same crime on another female student. As The Washington Stand previously covered, “Eventually, enough controversy erupted that the male student was charged and convicted in juvenile court for both assaults.”

Concerning this ongoing case, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights had already sided with the boys, finding that LCPS had violated Title IX by discriminating against the boys on the basis of sex. As the office put it, LCPS “failed to meaningfully investigate complaints of sexual harassment by two male students concerning the presence of a member of the opposite sex in male-only intimate spaces yet thoroughly investigated the female student’s sexual harassment complaint about the boys.” At the time, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor had said “Loudoun County’s adherence to radical gender ideology has repeatedly placed its students in harm’s way,” urging it “to abandon its reliance upon post-modern ideology and instead embrace the requirements of law by coming into compliance with Title IX.”

Expressing optimism over the outcome of the case, Victoria Cobb, president of FFLC, stated, “I am confident our justice system will overrule the decisions made by biased, ideologically driven administrators.”