Trump fact check: Who is January Littlejohn and was her child really ‘secretly transitioned’?

Donald Trump referred to January Littlejohn during his recent speech to the joint session of Congress, leaving many people wondering what the truth is behind Trump’s claim that her child was “secretly transitioned.”

In the speech on Tuesday evening (4 March), during which he ranted about “transgender mice”, and stood by his series of anti-trans executive orders, the president introduced January Littlejohn, saying: “A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl,” Politifact reported.

“Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns, they/them pronouns, all without telling January.”

Who is January Littlejohn?

The Littlejohn family sued Florida’s Leon County school district in 2021, alleging that education officials had failed to inform them of their child’s gender identity and social transition. 

However, emails seen by CNN and the Tallahassee Democrat paint a different story.

They appear to show that January Littlejohn was aware of her daughter’s gender identity and had informed teachers that the teenager wanted to be known by a new name and use different pronouns. 

The emails seen by CNN, which Littlejohn did not reply to a request for comment about at the time, begin in August 27, 2020, with an email to a teacher.

CNN reproduced an email from Littlejohn that said: “This has been an incredibly difficult situation for our family and her father and I are trying to be as supportive as we can. She is currently identifying as non-binary. She would like to go by the new name [redacted] and prefers the pronouns they/them. We have not changed her name at home yet, but I told her if she wants to go by the name [redacted] with her teachers, I won’t stop her.”

In the response to the email, the teacher thanked Littlejohn and asked if she should share with other teachers.

However, following that initial exchange, Littlejohn and her husband, Jeffrey, sued the Leon County School Board in a federal court for – amongst other things – developing a Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Student Support Plan for their child as per the school’s standard policy, which January Littlejohn claimed was created without notifying her or her husband.

The family claimed that the school district’s policy regarding trans students therefore violated parents’ “fundamental rights”.

A federal judge subsequently dismissed the Littlejohn’s lawsuit, for “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted”, prompting the family to appeal. 

In 2022, Florida brought in the Parental Rights in Education Act – known as Don’t Say Gay – which originally had an amendment requiring school principals to disclose a child’s sexual orientation to parents within six weeks if they find out a student has come out as other than straight. Opponents said this mandatory “outing” of students to their parents would put them at risk of harm.

Republican state Rep. Joe Harding withdrew the amendment, stating: “Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student. Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children’s lives.”

January Littlejohn now works for Do No Harm, a charity dedicated to “combatting the attack on our healthcare system from woke activists… [and] protecting healthcare from the disastrous consequences of identity politics”.

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