A transgender student is seeking a protective order against Oklahoma education officials to prohibit them from revealing the student's identity, according to a report Monday.
The unusual request came in connection with a pending lawsuit against state Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and the state Board of Education over a request to change the student's name and gender in school records, the Oklahoman said, citing court records.
It also followed a ruling in which a federal judge agreed to let the student be identified using the pseudonym "J. Doe," but the case has since been transferred to state court, the Oklahoman said.
The student's lawsuit, filed in December, challenges an emergency rule proposed by Walters in September to prohibit local schools from "altering sex or gender designation" in their records "without authorization from the State Board of Education," according to a copy posted online by Oklahoma Watch.
The rule was adopted by the board in January, with Walters saying it would allow schools to "focus on academics and to stop this left-wing nonsense," public radio station KOSU reported at the time.
"I've heard this from folks of all political backgrounds, that we do not want these transgender games going on in our school," Walters said.
The student's motion for a protective order was initially filed on April 15, when the student's lawyers said the defendants hadn't responded to attempts "at obtaining agreement" over the issue of the student's identity, according to the Oklahoman.
The following day, a lawyer representing the state Education Department called one of the student's lawyers, Leslie Briggs of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, who then withdrew the motion pending further discussions, according to the Oklahoman.
But on May 14, the student's lawyers renewed their request for a protective order and said it was needed because Walters and Bryan Cleveland, the department's former general counsel, had already identified the student at a public meeting of the state school board.
In an email that's part of the new motion, Briggs reportedly said the Education Department had proposed sealing all hearings in the case and subjecting both sides to a gag order, which Briggs said would mean that Walters and Cleveland would get to "purposely misgender the Plaintiff without reproach."
The Education Department's lawyer, Jason Reese, wrote that the question of identifying the student "should be in the discretion of the court as matters unfold," according to the Oklahoman.
A spokesperson for Walters and the school board didn't immediately return a request for comment from HNGN on Monday.
