It was early December when Amber Lavigne found her 13-year-old daughter’s chest binder.
Lavigne would later learn that earlier in the year, without her knowledge, her daughter had been reassigned to a new social worker at Great Salt Bay Community School in Maine. This social worker, she learned, had been advising her daughter about gender transitioning. He had provided her daughter with the chest binder, telling the girl that he wouldn’t tell her mother, and she didn’t need to either. She also learned that school personnel had been involved in socially transitioning her daughter, referring to her by a new name and by male pronouns.
No one had bothered to notify Lavigne.
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‘This is Happening Everywhere’
While she has received support from local Republican groups, Lavigne said she is no religious fanatic or right-wing culture warrior. Rather, she’s a Democrat who runs a mental-health-services business in Damariscotta, a small coastal town in Maine best known for its oysters. Her business has worked with transgender clients over the years, she said.
“I’m a pretty open-minded person,” she said, though she said that’s not how she’s been portrayed by school leaders.
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Parental Rights