Attorneys for John Parks, a track coach in Oregon, filed a lawsuit Thursday against the school district where he previously worked.
The Lake Oswego School District, which oversees Lake Oswego High School, and the Lake Oswego School Board fired last month after sending a letter to state officials about laws related to transgender athletes.
“The Liberty Justice Center has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against an Oregon school district on behalf of a high school track coach who was fired for proposing an open division in which transgender athletes compete, to ensure equity for all student athletes,” according to a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
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John Parks was a girls track coach at Lake Oswego High School in Oregon. (Fox News)
Parks recently appeared on the show “OutKick”Gaines for girls” podcast, hosted by former college swimmer Riley Gaines.
Parks said the moments leading up to the women's 400 meter race The athletes he trained and their parents suffered from high levels of stress. The race included a biological male runner who identified as a woman.
“It caused them a great deal of distress in the lead-up,” Parks told Gaines, an OutKick contributor and director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute. “Their parents were very concerned and had issues with… but they… [were] They are afraid to speak out in any way… they want to support all students and transgender students in every way. But, they felt that it was causing them unfair stress to have to compete in these types of conditions where this trans athlete [had] I just made the transition recently [and] “I used to be a bodybuilder.”
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Formerly parks told KATU who addressed two letters to a high-ranking official of the Oregon Student Activities Association.
She also sent letters to state Sen. Rob Wagner, including one last month after Oregon’s state championships. In the letters, Parks argued that the state’s laws, as currently written, hurt women’s sports.
John Parks was fired after sending a letter to state officials about laws related to transgender athletes. (John Walton – PA Images via Getty Images)
Parks appeared to be referring to the International Olympic Committee Hormone Testing Obligations. Hormone testing requirements vary among different leagues, committees and sports organizations.
“OSAA competition rules should be in line with those applied around the world,” Parks wrote in the letter to Wagner. “My proposal to encourage transgender participation is to offer an open division bearing that name so that it does not identify or discriminate, but provides an opportunity to participate.”
John Parks said the lead-up to a women's 400-meter event was filled with high levels of stress for the athletes he coached and their parents, while a biological male runner, who identified as female, competed in the race. (Photos by C. Morgan Engel/NCAA via Getty Images)
Parks also offered details of events that occurred after she wrote the letter.
“After I sent the letter (I sent it late on a Sunday night), on Tuesday I saw my athletic director walking down the hall and he said that the state lady, Kelly Foster, received your letter and agrees with you, but she can't respond.”
While Parks expressed concern about laws that offer protection to athletes seeking to compete against the gender with which they personally identify, she also said she is not calling for the complete exclusion of transgender athletes.
“The only thing I was defending was… [was] “An open division that allows competition so fans can cheer on transgender athletes separately and recognize and reward their efforts,” Parks told Gaines. “But without taking away from the female athletes who were born naturally female and are on a completely different level of competition.”
The full announcement can be read below.
A Lake Oswego School District spokesperson previously confirmed that Parks no longer worked for the district. The school district did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Parks' separation.
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“We do not discuss personnel matters,” Mary Kay Larson, communications director for the Lake Oswego School District, said in a statement.
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