Montgomery, AL – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has joined a 21-state legal brief supporting parents who are appealing a federal court decision that dismissed their lawsuit challenging a Colorado school district’s student housing policy.
The case centers on a district policy that assigns students to share hotel rooms and locker room accommodations on school field trips and at sporting events based on a student’s self-professed gender identity rather than biological sex. Parents filed suit arguing the policy violates their rights and raises concerns for student privacy. A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit, preventing the case from moving forward to the discovery phase.
Attorney General Marshall and the coalition of states filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to reverse the dismissal and allow the parents’ case to proceed. The brief argues that the district court unfairly treated the parents—identified as Christian—by dismissing their claims at an early stage, while allowing similar claims in other legal contexts to continue.
The coalition also contends that the school district’s policy relies on medical guidance that, according to the brief, has been discredited in previous litigation involving the state of Alabama.
“The Constitution does not require parents to sit idly by as school districts overtaken by gender ideology force their daughters to share hotel rooms and locker rooms with boys,” Marshall stated. “Nor does the Constitution require courts to accept the ideology posing as medical guidance by interest groups that want to offer sex-change procedures to children. Our children deserve better.”
Marshall has been actively involved in litigation related to child welfare and gender-related medical procedures. He has previously defended AL’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, which restricts certain medical treatments for minors. In January 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit allowed the law to take effect.
In addition to AL, the brief was joined by the attorneys general of Florida, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The Arizona State Legislature also joined the filing.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals will consider whether the parents’ lawsuit should be reinstated and allowed to proceed.
