New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is facing a federal lawsuit over her warning that school board members could be removed over debates surrounding transgender issues.

Ms. James issued a “guidance letter” in May 2025, warning that “some board members have made, and encouraged, comments during board meetings that demean and stigmatize LGBTQ+ students.” The letter went on to warn that school board members can be removed if they use the wrong pronoun for a transgender individual or allow “bullying or harassment of LGBTQ+ students.” 

The attorney general’s office says those allegedly harassing comments have included “attacks on school support for LGBTQ+ student groups and on transgender and gender-expansive students’ right to use facilities, including restrooms and locker rooms, or participate on school athletic teams consistent with their gender identity.” 

A group of school board members and parents on Long Island, and the president of the Massapequa School Board, Kerry Wachter, filed a federal lawsuit against Ms. James, arguing that her letter is an “intimidation” tactic to shut down debates on issues such as transgender students using locker rooms that do not align with their biological sex. The lawsuit was filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The president of the foundation, Kim Hermann, said, “Kerry Wachter has allowed Massapequa High School students to speak up and express their fears and discomfort with biological males changing in their girls’ locker room, even when there is a gender neutral locker room available at the school that the student does not use.”

“Because she has allowed these students to speak about their experiences, which they said often distract them from learning throughout the school day, she now faces forced removal from her elected position to the school board because of the anti-free speech actions and policies of the State of New York,” Ms. Hermann added.

During a recent Massapequa school board meeting, one female student spoke about how she does not feel “comfortable” changing “in the same locker room as someone of the opposite gender.”

“I feel like I have no support, and after I leave that room, I feel a wave of relief, but that’s not the end of it. These situations stick with me throughout the day, often distracting me from my learning, so I walk through the rest of my day continuing to feel discouraged,” she said. 

According to Ms. James’s letter, school board meetings are “considered limited public fora” and school boards “should be mindful that their ‘meetings are an inappropriate venue to air personal or political grievances.’”

“Purely ideological statements opposing students’ rights under New York Law are an unproductive diversion from the boards’ important work,” the letter reads. “Such statements can harm children.”

Ms. James also wrote that school boards that “allow students in their care to be bullied or harassed may be liable for the foreseeable emotional injuries stemming from that conduct.”

“Board members may be removed by the commissioner of education if they, (1) violate the education law or another law ‘pertaining to [public] schools,’ including the state Human Rights Law; (2) willfully neglect their duties as public officers; or (3) willfully disobey a ‘decision, order, rule or regulation’ of the Regents or the commissioner of education,” the letter reads, in what the plaintiffs say was a threat of removing board members.

A former Republican candidate for Manhattan district attorney, who has been outspoken on transgender issues in schools, Maud Maron, tells the Sun that Ms. James’s letter is “pure authoritarianism.”

“It’s bad enough she wants to pretend that men can become women by clicking their heels three times and wishing really hard, but she has the clearly unconstitutional audacity to tell Long Islanders that they can’t call a man a man?” she said. “People are talking about the impact of trans ideology in schools, classrooms, gyms, and locker rooms because it is bad and harmful for women and girls.”

Ms. James’s office has insisted that she was simply explaining state laws. 

However, Ms. Maron said, “We are Americans and we do not need good reasons to say whatever the hell we want to say. And saying ‘he’s a man’ about a man that calls himself a trans woman is our right. It’s also just common sense. She’s ridiculous.”

Ms. James recently suffered a setback in her effort to curb speech on another issue: abortion. Last week, a federal court blocked the attorney general from suing faith-based pregnancy centers that promote so-called abortion-pill reversal, ruling that an injunction against the attorney’s lawsuits protects the First Amendment right to make “religiously and morally motivated statements.”

The attorney general’s office did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.