FLORENCE, Colo. — A California-based Christian legal organization has proposed a new policy to Colorado school district officials in an effort to sufficiently protect girls in one school district who state that they feel uncomfortable with a boy that has been using their restroom.
As previously reported, according to the Sacrament0-based Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), parents of teenage girls at Florence High School contacted PJI last year to express concern after their daughters said that a boy, who identifies as a girl, had been using the restroom and making inappropriate comments. The male student reportedly uses the boys’ and girls’ restrooms interchangeably, and is thus not consistent in his gender identity.
However, when parents approached school officials about the matter, they were informed that the male student must be permitted to use the girls’ facilities.
“Our students are in a scenario where they’re being told, ‘If you don’t want to be in this situation where this guy walks in while you’re in the bathroom, then you’ve got to confine yourself to one staff bathroom that is very inconvenient, that’s not even open all the time that they’re on campus for athletic activities and things like that,” attorney Matthew McReynolds told WND. “[They’re being told that] you just have to give up your right to use the other dozen or so bathrooms on campus. You just have to clear out so that this one other student can do whatever he wants.’”
Therefore, in an attempt to reach an agreement that would satisfy both sides of the matter, PJI submitted a draft policy to the Florence-Penrose School District last month.
“District staff shall make every effort to accommodate students who exclusively identify with the opposite biological and anatomical sex, but in a manner that is consistent with other students’ reasonable expectations of privacy,” it reads. “In any case where a sincere objection is raised to the use of a gender-specific facility by an affected person who uses such facility on the basis of anatomical gender identity, the District shall reasonably accommodate such objection and provide alternative facilities for persons claiming gender based on non-anatomical factors.”
“Such accommodation shall include any case involving undressing in the presence of others in a gender-specific facility,” it continues. “In gender-specific facilities, such as restrooms and locker rooms, as well as in off-campus activities such as sleeping arrangements on overnight school trips, administrators and staff shall be sensitive to the privacy needs of all students.”
Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti told the Daily Record that the school board will discuss the proposed policy during its workshop on February 10th.
Brad Dacus, president of PJI said that he believes the policy is necessary to protect students in such sensitive settings.
“The opposition has grappled to paint us as hateful people for simply wanting to protect the privacy of all children,” he said. “We recognize that there are those who sincerely struggle with identifying with their natural gender—and we’re sympathetic to their challenges—but it doesn’t change the fact of their biological sex. As such, this policy will help ensure that not just some, but all students have the privacy they deserve.”
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