Moms for Liberty gets damages after event shut down over ‘misgendering’

A California county will pay $70,000 (£55,300) in damages to settle a lawsuit filed by Moms for Liberty and other women’s groups, after a librarian shut down their women’s sport forum for misgendering trans athletes. 

Yolo County has agreed to pay the damages and lawyers’ fees. As part of the settlement, it will also revise its library policy to ensure staff “shall not interfere with presentations or other speech by individuals or groups that have reserved meeting rooms, based on the content of such speech”. 

The settlement notes that the county will instruct staff to “curtail any disruptive behaviour” during events, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group. 

Moms for Liberty Yolo County and other women’s groups hosted an event on 13 April, without incident, following the initial date, last August, being disrupted by protestors who accused speaker Sophia Lorey of “misgendering”. 

Moms for Liberty is a conservative political organisation that has branches across 48 states, with more than 300 local chapters. The organisation focuses on opposing the mention of LGBTQ+ rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory and discrimination in school curriculums. 

In 2023, the organisation was categorised as a far-right and anti-government extremist group, by civil rights activists at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Institute for Free Speech, which represented the plaintiffs with the alliance, said the settlement is a “clear victory for free speech and the First Amendment”. 

Its vice-president for litigation, Alan Gura, said: “Yolo County officials tried to silence speakers and shut down an event because the ideas expressed there didn’t comport with the officials’ preferred ideology. 

“As a result of this lawsuit, Yolo County has now agreed to respect the right of all Americans to freely express their views in public spaces without fear of government censorship.”