Editor’s Note: This is a breaking news story and may be updated.
A federal judge dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought in Sweetwater County by a family who accused their school district of illegally hiding their child’s gender transition from them.
That’s according to court documents obtained by Wyoming Public Radio on April 29.
In a win for Sweetwater School District No. 1, U.S. District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl ordered the termination of the court case, finding that the district’s Board of Trustees or administrators did not infringe on the plaintiffs’, Ashley and Sean Willey, right to control their child’s upbringing when the district used the Willey’s child’s preferred name and pronouns.
Skavdahl wrote, “The undisputed facts establish that Defendants did not withhold or knowingly misrepresent any information regarding the Student from or to Plaintiff, and thus did not interfere with this right.”
The case was first filed in 2023, when Ashley Willey, a special education teacher in the school district, learned that other teachers were using her child’s preferred “he/him” pronouns and a male name after the child asked teachers to do so. To protect their identity, the initials “A.S.” are used in the filing to refer to the student’s name given at birth, while “C” is used in the filing to refer to the student’s preferred male name.
According to court documents, Willey messaged some school staff and personnel telling them to use her child’s birth name and female pronouns. At the time, the school district did not have a written policy about students’ preferred names or pronouns, though the district adopted such a procedure later in 2022. It required district staff to honor all students’ requests to be called by alternate names or pronouns, and stated “[s]taff must respect the privacy of all students regarding such a choice.”
An update to that procedure that required the district to share changes to a student’s educational status, including chosen names and pronouns, with the student’s parents or guardians upon request in most cases.
“Plaintiff sets forth no facts where the District or any staff member withheld information from her or misinformed her regarding her child’s use of preferred name or pronouns,” Skavdahl wrote. “Rather, Plaintiff does not dispute that when Plaintiff inquired into the Student’s use of preferred name and pronouns she was informed of the Student’s use.”
Court documents also say Willey did not use students’ preferred names or pronouns while employed as a teacher for the district, and that she was never disciplined or retaliated against for not using pronouns.
The Willeys originally wrote that they were suing to solidify their parental rights to manage A.S.’s upbringing and preserve their child’s mental health, in addition to exercising their religious freedom as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“A respectful and nondiscriminatory school environment is a legitimate state interest. Referring to students by preferred names and even declining to proactively inform parents to respect a student’s choice are both rationally related to that interest. Thus, the District policies and staff
members’ actions pass constitutional muster, and the Court grants summary judgment in favor of Defendants on this claim,” Skavdahl wrote.
The Willeys’ suit came less than a year before the Wyoming Legislature passed a new parental rights in education law in the 2024 legislative budget session.
That law, SF 9, requires parental consent for students to receive instruction in sexual orientation or gender identity. It also requires Wyoming school districts to “[n]otify a student's parent or guardian as soon as practicable if there is a change in the student's educational, physical, mental or emotional health or well‑being.”
Lawmakers followed up in 2025 by passing bans on where transgender people can go in the state and what academic-based sports teams they can play on in the recent general session that ended in March.
Sweetwater County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees, former Superintendent Kelly McGovern, Assistant Superintendent and Human Resources Director Nicole Bolton and Director of Student Services Kayci Arnoldi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
