A few weeks before Christmas in 2022, Amber Lavigne was cleaning her 13-year-old’s bedroom when she stumbled upon her daughter’s secret: a chest binder. She learned that Autumn had been wearing the garment, which girls use to flatten their breasts to achieve a masculine appearance, for about two months at school in Maine, where she had adopted a boy’s name, Leo, and was using he/him pronouns.
It was the first of two chest binders Lavigne found that had been provided to her eighth-grade daughter by a social worker at the Great Salt Bay Community School, according to a federal lawsuit Lavigne filed in 2023, which is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her lawsuit alleges that the public school not only aided and abetted Autumn’s gender transition but also hid the information from her parents.
“I think it’s important for parents to know that this is occurring in our public schools because I don’t think many parents believe that it’s as bad as it really is,” Lavigne said on a recent podcast. “When I was a kid, one of the first things I heard about adults is if any adult asks you as a child to keep a secret, there’s something wrong with that adult, and you need to come tell me immediately.”
“And now, I mean, it’s like we’re in upside-down land.”
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