At a school board meeting in Maine last week, the mother of a 13-year-old girl accused a social worker employed at her daughter’s school of providing her child with a chest compression garment. According to the mom, the social worker and other school staff actively encouraged her daughter to transition into a boy without parental knowledge or consent, the Maine Wire reported.
Amber Lavigne, the mother of a teenage daughter who attended Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta, Maine, confronted public school officials on Wednesday and accused a staff member of providing her daughter with a chest binder and telling her to keep it a secret from her parents.
Chest-binders are gender transition devices that flatten the chest’s appearance. While the garments are not considered medical devices, doctors have expressed safety concerns related to their use. For example, binders can cause back pain, restricted breathing, skin irritation, bruising, and rib fractures. The garment requires proper sizing and frequent breaks to reduce these safety concerns.
Lavigne told the school board that only a few short weeks after her daughter’s 13th birthday, her child was given the chest compression device by Samuel Roy, a school social worker.
The concerned mother stated that she knew her child was seeing a social worker, but she was not told that her daughter had been reassigned to Roy in October. According to Lavigne, she never met with and was never contacted by Roy.
Lavigne alleged that Roy and other school officials secretly allowed her daughter to socially transition by using masculine pronouns at school without informing her parents.
“On Friday, December 2, we discovered a chest binder in my barely 13-year-olds bedroom. Utilizing these devices can cause serious side-effects. After discussing this with our 13-year-old minor child, it was revealed to us that the binder was given to her by a district social worker employed at AOS Central Lincoln County Maine Schools without our permission,” Lavigne stated.
Lavigne explained that she went to the school officials with this information but that no action was taken against the employees who participated in keeping her daughter’s transitioning a secret.
The concerned mother demanded that the school provide her with both social workers’ meeting notes with the teen.
“A social worker at the school encouraged a student to keep a secret from her parents,” Lavigne said. “This is the very definition of child predatory sexual grooming. Predators work to gain a victims’ trust by driving a wedge between them and their parents.”
Following Lavigne’s speech, Chris Coleman, a fourth-grade teacher from the school, spoke to school board officials about the district’s gender policies.
“I’m here because members of our community, and perhaps some from afar, have decided that our transgender students do not deserve to feel safe at school,” Coleman stated.
He noted that referring to the teachers as “groomers” is insulting.
Since the incident, Lavigne has pulled her daughter from the school system.
“Laws, policies, and parental trust were broken,” Lavigne said. “No other parent should have to go through the trauma and distress this has caused my family.”
According to the Maine Wire, Lavigne is considering taking legal action against the school.
The school district, the school board, and Superintendent Lynsey Johnston did not respond to a request for comment, the outlet reported.