A parents’ rights activist, seated prominently between First Lady Melania Trump and Second Lady Usha Vance at President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last week, has lost her appeal over forced outing in Florida.

A federal appeals court this week upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by January Littlejohn against her child’s school district in Tallahassee.

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January Littlejohn said a school secretly tried to turn her daughter into a boy. But public emails suggest otherwise.

In 2022, Littlejohn sued the Leon County School District and staff members at Deer Lake Middle School for allowing her 13-year-old child to use they/them pronouns and go by the “masculine” nickname “J” without their express permission.

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It wasn’t up to them, however.

J began exploring their gender identity during the 2020-21 school year. At the time, the school district was using a 2018 guide that warned outing a student to their parents poses a risk to the student’s well-being. It allowed for a support plan that gave students a say in whether or not they want to be outed to their parents. J chose not to be.

The guide was updated in 2022 after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state’s now infamous Don’t Say Gay legislation law prohibiting classroom discussion of gender identity and all things LGBTQ+.

Littlejohn’s attorneys used the updated guide to argue their case, despite the school making their decisions about J based on the 2018 guidance. They continue to lose on appeal.

The U.S. District Court dismissed the case for the Northern District of Florida in December 2022.

The school officials named in the case “did not force the Littlejohns’ child to do anything at all,” Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in this week’s decision. “And perhaps most importantly, defendants did not act with intent to injure. To the contrary, they sought to help the child.”

“Even if the Littlejohns felt that defendants’ efforts to help their child were misguided or wrong, the mere fact that the school officials acted contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes does not mean that their conduct ‘shocks the conscience’ in a constitutional sense,” Rosenbaum wrote.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Kevin C. Newsom said he considered the actions taken by the school district officials “shameful.” But the question at hand, he wrote, was “whether it was unconstitutional.”

“If I were a legislator, I’d vote to change the policy that enabled the defendants’ efforts to keep the Littlejohns in the dark,” he wrote. “But — and it’s a big but — judges aren’t just politicians in robes, and they don’t (or certainly shouldn’t) just vote their personal preferences.”

Littlejohn has been a vocal trans rights opponent and aligned herself with hate groups like Florida-made Moms for Liberty and Stop The Docs. While J’s identity has remained protected, Littlejohn has basked in the spotlight as she spreads her transphobic message.

January Littlejohn “is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse,” Trump said in his speech, as Littlejohn rose to take a bow.

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