California mother: Teachers manipulated child to change gender identity

LOS ANGELES - A mother who claims teachers secretly manipulated her 11-year-old daughter into changing her gender identity and name has filed a legal case against a tiny California school district.Spreckels Union School District was responsible for "extreme and outrageous conduct" that led the student on a path toward transitioning as a boy and drove a wedge between mother and child, according to the claim filed Wednesday by a conservative legal group.Jessica Konen said two middle school teachers who ran the school’s Equality Club — later known as UBU (You Be You) — had planted the seed in her daughter’s head in 6th grade that she was bisexual and then introduced the idea she was transgender.The legal claim that is a precursor to a lawsuit follows a flare up of tensions in the district last fall after the author of a book widely criticized as "anti-transgender" quoted the two teachers speaking at a conference about how to run an LGBTQ+ club in a conservative community.Spreckels is a speck of a town in the agricultural Salinas Valley, about 90 miles south of San Francisco.

It was once home to the world’s largest sugar refinery and was the setting for some of the scenes in the 1955 film based on John Steinbeck’s "East of Eden."While Konen said her daughter had revealed she was bisexual, the mother was unaware she was identifying as a boy until she was called to a meeting at the Buena Vista Middle School principal’s office in December 2019 when her daughter was in 7th grade.She wasn’t told the purpose of the meeting until her daughter entered the room and sat across a table from her and teacher Lori Caldeira broke the news."I literally was caught off guard.