NY teacher forced girl, 9, to use male pronouns — causing suicidal thoughts: suitBy Priscilla DeGregory
February 28, 2023
A Long Island teacher “forced” a 5th-grade girl to go by a male name and pronouns, confusing the child so much that she had suicidal thoughts, a lawsuit alleges.
Debra Rosenquist — a 5th-grade teacher at Terryville Road Elementary School in Port Jefferson Station — started calling the 9-year-old Leo and using opposite gender pronouns toward the beginning of the 2021-’22 school year, according to a lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Court by the child’s parents last month.
The parents say they were only clued in about what was happening in January 2022, when the school principal called them telling them their child – referred to in court papers as A.V. – had drawn a picture of a girl, writing “I wanna kill myself” and “I feel sad like a lot,” the filing claims.
The principal also informed the parents that A.V. had even met with the school psychologist telling the mental health worker that she “was confused about her gender identity,” the court papers say.
Despite Rosenquist, 62, having referred to the student “for months at that point” as Leo, it was only during the Jan. 27, 2022 call that the parents were asked for the first time if this name was okay, the suit claims.
The parents were supportive “as long as it was A.V. who had requested the name change,” the filing said.
But they had doubts she had asked to be called Leo to identify as a boy — in the past, she been called that by a friend but in reference to her astrological sign.
A.V.’s parents also became concerned when they saw complaints against Rosenquist on Facebook, claiming the teacher had been reported for abuse but that the school district had done nothing about it because she was tenured, the suit alleges.
During a deeper dig into the social media comments, the parents found that Rosenquist didn’t follow the school curriculum and taught her students about transgender people and told kids to “try being gay” or try going by the opposite gender, the suit claims.
The educator even made her own LGBTQ+ book called “I Am Neither” for her 9 and 10-year-old students and assigned a book called “When Aiden Becomes a Brother,” according to the lawsuit.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/ny-teacher-forced-5th-grader-to-go-by-male-pronouns-suit/