DV Journal

An Avon Grove School Board committee killed a resolution on transgender students’ bathroom use.

The resolution “Support of aligning student restroom and locker room use to one’s biological sex while also offering compassionate accommodations to our transgender students” was authored by School Director Mike Woodin. It stemmed from the Biden-Harris administration’s changes to Title IX, the 1972 law that brought equality to girls’ education and sports.

Woodin’s resolution “advocated that the district be permitted to provide transgender students two accommodations for restroom and locker room needs, in addition to the facilities of their biological sex, if their parents/guardians wish them to have such accommodation: single-use restrooms or the nurse’s office restroom.”

Numerous parents and residents spoke for and against the resolution during the public comment period.

One woman said transgender kids are “young people, struggling mightily.”

“How is it anyone’s business? Mind your own darn business. Can we count the number of trans kids on one hand?” she asked.

A former student said the resolution was discriminatory and would cause the district to pay for litigation.

But a father said, “I have a 9-year-old daughter. She is very athletic…the thought of a trans person in restrooms, in locker rooms with her, that’s what keeps me up at night, for her to be inappropriately touched and even raped.

“I talked with a mom from Virginia who moved up here and had dealt with that issue. I’m not just going to stand back and let that happen. The same with my son…this problem is we have extracurricular sporting events. We have full-grown adults that use the bathrooms…We’re here to protect our kids and make sure that doesn’t have any life-scarring effects.”

In May 2021, a teenage girl was sexually assaulted in the girls’ bathroom at a northern Virginia high school by a boy wearing a skirt who identified as “gender-fluid.” After a lawsuit was filed, the trans-identifying boy moved to a different school, where he sexually harassed another girl under a similar school policy that allowed him to use the girls’ bathroom.

Suzie Knightly said there was  “a situation in high school in locker room…My daughter said a guy came into the locker room. A boy was standing there watching. I don’t know if he was a guy trans. He just stood there watching, in street clothes. The girls didn’t know what to do. All these girls froze…A senior girl finally stood up and said, ‘Get out.’ Those girls didn’t know what to do. Was he allowed? No one knows what (they are) allowed to do. You opened a big fat can of worms.”

Another person who said they are trans told the board, “We are not the problem. We simply want to live. This policy is unfair and immoral and in violation of Title IX. That trans girl in the locker room was not causing a problem. She was just trying to get changed for gym.”

A woman said, “Transgender kids are not the problem.” She said she would like to see the single-use bathrooms opened for all kids to use.

“These transgender kids have to be so brave every day…I just want my kid to have a safe place to use the bathroom,” she said.

A father with three kids in the district said the resolution was based on fear, not facts.

“If you have male genitalia, you belong in the boys’ locker room,” said a woman. “If you have female genitalia, you belong in the girls’ locker room.”

District solicitor Andrew Rau said, “The U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld lower court injunctions to put a hold on the new 2024 federal Title IX regulations in the 5th and 6th Circuit Courts. Similarly, a federal District Court case in Kansas (in the 10th Circuit) involving Moms for Liberty as a plaintiff has stopped the new 2024 Title IX regulations from going into effect, including for certain schools around the country where Moms for Liberty asserts there are members with students. AGSD schools are not yet on that Kansas Court’s officially filed list, but one or more may be in the future.”

He said the Supreme Court’s ruling did not apply to the Third Circuit, which governs southeastern Pennsylvania. Rather, a 2018 case out of the Boyertown Area School District held precedence. In that case, the Third Circuit found “the presence of transgender students in the locker and restrooms is no more offensive to constitutional or Pennsylvania-law privacy interests than the presence of the other students who are not transgender. Nor does their presence infringe on the plaintiffs’ rights under Title IX.”

When asked to comment, Woodin, a Republican running for the state Senate in District 9, said, “I support engaging the community further to find a commonsense and compassionate solution so that all students feel comfortable in the school bathrooms and locker rooms. As a father of children in these schools, I am against forcing kids to change their clothes in front of students of the opposite biological sex.”

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