A New Hampshire teenager was suspended for one game from his high school football team for controversially claiming that there are only two genders, the New York Post reported.
According to the Exeter High School student, he made the claim via text message while off campus back in September.
At the time, a female classmate interjected into his private conversation and asserted that there are in fact more than two genders.
“No there isn’t,” the student responded. “There’s only two genders.”
The conversation led to an exchange of text messages, which were turned in to school administrators and printed off to justify the suspension.
School Superintendent David Ryan told the Associated Press the school was reviewing the complaint “and will be able to share a statement once we have completed that review.”
As punishment, the student suspended from the football team for one game.
The student, a devout Catholic, has elected to sue the school district for its suppression of his religious views.
He is also opposing its policy that students must be called by the pronouns of their choice on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment.
The high school’s policy states that any “student has the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that corresponds to the student’s gender identity.”
It also says that “the intentional or persistent refusal to respect a student’s gender identity … is a violation of this policy.”
The student “does not deny that he violated the Gender Nonconforming Students policy,” according to his lawyer.
“He, in fact, denied, and will continue to deny, that any person can belong to a gender other than that of ‘male’ or ‘female.’”
Further, the student “will never refer to any individual person using plural pronouns such as ‘they,’ using contrived pronouns such as ‘ze,’ or with any similar terminology that reflects values which [the student] does not share.”
