PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A legal battle over a controversial Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) regulation intensified this week, as Jane Doe, the mother at the center of a high-profile transgender policy lawsuit, and her legal team filed a scathing reply brief objecting to the state’s argument.

“In her objection to Plaintiff’s declaratory judgment action, the Commissioner through her attorneys succeed in adding insult to injury, when they accuse the mother in this case of trying to ‘disappear’ her daughter,” writes Gregory P. Piccirilli attorney for Jane Doe. “The rabid language used in the objection is not just confined to some visceral hatred of all things President Donald Trump, but includes one of the most shocking defamations counsel has ever seen contained in a legal filing…”

Filed in Providence County Superior Court, the lawsuit seeks to strike down RIDE’s 2018 regulation that allowed public schools to facilitate gender transitions for students without parental notification. Jane Doe’s daughter, who had a history of childhood trauma, was socially transitioned by school staff without her mother’s knowledge — a concealment that Doe says contributed to her daughter’s suicide attempt in 10th grade.

In a court filing submitted July 18, Doe’s attorney strongly objected to what he called “heartless” and “demeaning” rhetoric by RIDE’s counsel which accused Doe of trying to “disappear” her daughter. Piccirilli’s brief argues that the Commissioner of Education overstepped her statutory authority by issuing the 2018 regulation to redefine sex to include gender identity.

With a precedent-setting decision looming, the case could have broad implications for parental rights, transgender policy in schools, and the limits of administrative authority in Rhode Island and beyond.

“It bears repeating: nothing in R.I. Gen. Laws § 16-38-1.1 gives the power to the Commissioner to impose her ideological view to redefine sex to include gender or gender identity,” the filing reads.

A serious personal toll was taken on Jane Doe as a result of these events. After her daughter’s hospitalization, Doe was denied family leave, lost her job, and ultimately damaged her relationship with her daughter. The district has allegedly withheld key records related to the child’s transition.