The federal appeals court in Boston is rejecting a Maine mother’s accusation that the Damariscotta school district hid her child’s gender transition from her and their family.

Amber Lavigne claimed that a staff member at Great Salt Bay Community School provided her 13-year-old with a chest binder and allowed the teen to use a different name and pronouns at school without informing her.

A federal court in Maine dismissed Lavigne’s lawsuit last year, and the appeals court upheld that decision this week, saying Lavigne had not proven the school board had a custom or policy of withholding information.

“Lavigne’s allegations fail to plausibly show that either the Board had a policy of withholding or that the Board later ratified the individual defendants’ decisions to withhold information from Lavigne,” wrote  Judge Lara Montecalvo in Monday’s appeals court decision.

Lavigne initially filed her lawsuit against the school board School Board in April 2023. She was represented in the case by the conservative Arizona-based think tank Goldwater Institute.