D.P. v. Mukwonago

And some very manipulative lawyering to avoid an unwanted outcome

August 28, 2025

First, my sincere condolences to everyone who has been affected by yesterday’s shooting in Minneapolis. The LGB Courage Coalition put out a deeply moving statement about it, which I encourage everyone to read. Jamie Reed gave a fantastic interview about it too.

The shooter was a man named Robin Westman. At the age of 17, he had changed his name from Robert to Robin. He was a 23-year-old man when he killed two children, injuring several more, and went on to kill himself. This is what the New York Times had to say about the matter yesterday:

The Times piece is laden with “she” and “her” pronouns to describe the shooter, who was male:

I got angry and did something I almost never do: swear on social media. I couldn’t help it.

Some people are blaming his parents for this. I’m not prepared to go there. I know too many parents whose children (whether minors or young adults) are caught up in this and I read their stories. I read nearly every story I receive from Parents with Inconvenient Truths About Trans (PITT). They’re struggling to figure out how to navigate this. Here is their post from this morning.

I understand that the shooter’s mother signed his legal documents changing his name when he was 17. I have no idea what her thinking was when she did so; how could I? Regardless, now, her child is dead, along with two other dead children. I take no solace in blaming her.

Now I’ll turn to the topic of today’s post: whether schools are allowed to maintain sex-separated bathrooms under federal law.

It’s difficult for me to believe how much time I have spent thinking and writing about this topic. How on earth are we here? Why is the federal judiciary being asked to decide whether it’s legal to have girls’ and boys’ bathrooms? My most recent post on the topic is here (available to paid subscribers only).

The reason this is even a question is that some students in various schools across the country claim to have opposite-sex “gender identities” and demand to use the opposite-sex bathrooms. This is another way of saying that there are “transgender students.” I’m not a fan of the phrase, and once begged viewers of what was then Tucker Carlson Tonight not to use it.

Often, the schools in question have gone to great lengths to create single-stall bathrooms that anyone can use, regardless of sex, but this is insufficient for people who claim to have opposite-sex “gender identities.” They demand access to the facilities designated for the opposite sex.

If this all sounds strange to you, welcome to my world. If you want a deep dive, pay for a subscription to this Substack. Buy my book, The Reckoning. Heck, buy multiple copies and give them to your friends and family members, regardless of political orientation. What you read might shock you. Nothing shocks me anymore.

Here are some of the US federal cases involving the question of whether schools are allowed to maintain single-sex bathrooms. I’ll provide case names, which courts they were in, and how the court in each case answered the question:

1. Whitaker v. Kenosha; 7th Circuit; no

2. Grimm v. Gloucester; 4th Circuit; no

3. Adams v. St. Johns County, 11th Circuit; yes

4. A.C. v. Martinsville; 7th Circuit; no

5. D.P. v. Mukwonago; 7th Circuit; no

6. John Doe v. State of South Carolina; 4th Circuit; no, for now (here is a story about the case if you’d like to read more)

The 11th Circuit is, therefore, the only US court of appeals that thinks that kids ought to be able to use bathrooms that are designated exclusively for their sex. This is the first sentence of that decision, from 2022: “This case involves the unremarkable—and nearly universal—practice of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex.” I think the 11th Circuit is as perplexed as anyone as to why this is even a question.

There’s another case called Doe v. Boyertown, from the 3rd Circuit, that was about not whether schools may maintain single-sex bathrooms, but whether they must do so. In each of the above cases, a “transgender student” (a kid who claims to have an opposite-sex “gender identity”) demanded the use of the opposite-sex bathroom and the school said no. In Doe v. Boyertown, the situation was reversed: a school outside of Philadelphia changed its policy over the summer and made all the bathrooms and locker rooms mixed-sex (without telling students or parents). A group of kids didn’t like that, so they sued the school, wanting single-sex bathrooms. The case ended up before the 3rd Circuit, which said that the kids had no right to single-sex bathrooms. And here we are.

The case of D.P. v. Mukwonago is especially interesting because the lawyers who represent a kid who claims to have an opposite-sex “gender identity” (a “transgender student”) have engaged in some highly manipulative (and arguably unethical) tactics in order to avoid an outcome they didn’t want. I’ve seen some sneaky lawyering before, but the sneakiness of the lawyering in this case has been impressive. Read on if you’d like to learn more.

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