WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Massachusetts parents who sued their child's school district over its handling of a student's gender identity, leaving intact a lower court ruling that rejected their claim that their rights were violated. The case tested whether a public school violates parents' rights when it encourages a child's social gender transition without their knowledge or consent.

Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, parents of a middle-school-aged child identified as B.F., brought the case after their child attended a public school in Ludlow, Massachusetts. According to court filings, B.F. began to raise questions about her gender identity and started seeing a therapist, and the parents informed the school that they would be getting B.F. professional help.

Silvestri instructed school officials not to have private discussions with her child so they could address mental health concerns as a family and with the proper professionals, according to court filings. The Ludlow School Committee rejected the request, and teachers began referring to the student by a different name and pronouns, while the school counselor said B.F. could choose which bathroom to use at school.

"The school was pushing beliefs concerning gender ideology behind the parents' backs and encouraging their children to question their own identity," Foote and Silvestri wrote in court papers. Foote and Silvestri filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2022 alleging the school's actions violated their rights to direct their children's upbringing, education, and medical and mental health decisions.

A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld that dismissal, finding that parents cannot invoke the Constitution's Due Process Clause to create a preferred educational experience for their child in public school.

In their Supreme Court appeal, lawyers for the parents cited rulings dating back to the 1920s reaffirming that parents have the right to make decisions about their children's upbringing. "Petitioners do not have a religious objection to their school district's indoctrination and transition of their children without their knowledge. Theirs is a moral belief, backed by well-supported scientific opinion, that a so-called gender transition harms their children," their lawyers wrote in a filing. They added: "Our Constitution's guarantee of parental rights in a pluralistic society rings hollow for millions of Americans if it offers no protection to nonreligious parents whose children are encouraged to social transition by their public school without their parents' notice or consent — or over their parents' vociferous objections."

The school board and local officials said in a Supreme Court filing that the policy at the heart of the case does not exist, and that school officials attempted to implement state policies and guidance in response to B.F.'s requests about her preferred name and pronouns.

In October, the Supreme Court declined to take up a similar lawsuit brought by two Colorado families. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said at the time that the issue involving parents' rights is of "great and growing national importance." In March, the court blocked a California law that prevented school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child sought to use different pronouns while litigation moved forward. A similar case brought by parents in Florida is awaiting action by the court.