https://news.yahoo.com/florida-board-education-adopts-strict-164206373.html
The Hill
Florida Board of Education adopts strict trans restroom policy
Brooke Migdon
Wed, October 19, 2022 at 9:42 AM
The Florida Board of Education on Wednesday approved a strict rule
preventing public and charter schools in the state from allowing
transgender youth to use the restroom or locker room consistent with
their gender identity without first alerting all parents with children
in the school district and making a public announcement online.
The rule adopted Wednesday requires school boards with policies that
allow transgender youth to use gender-separated facilities “according to
some criteria other than biological sex at birth” to post the policy to
the school district’s publicly available website and inform parents of
the policy’s existence by mail.
Letters to parents will at minimum detail the method of “student
supervision” provided by the school for locker rooms and how that method
ensures the safety and privacy of students. Chaperones like coaches or
aides may be placed in locker rooms where transgender youth are
permitted to change in accordance with their gender identity.
Parents in the letters will also be informed which locker rooms and
restrooms in their children’s schools are not separated by “biological
sex at birth.” Exceptions include faculty restrooms that are not
accessible to students and single occupancy restrooms.
“What this rule is about, as I understand it, is parental notification,”
Board of Education Chairman Thomas R. Grady said Wednesday following a
public comment period. “It’s not mandating what a particular bathroom
looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it.”
Grady said properly notifying parents of school district policies that
affect their children is an issue of constitutional free speech.
Public comments made during Wednesday morning’s meeting were divided in
their support for or opposition to the rule’s passage.
Members of several Florida chapters of the national conservative
organization Moms for Liberty urged the board to approve the rule to
protect young girls from being assaulted by boys that insincerely claim
they are transgender to gain access to girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.
Alexis Spiegelman, the group’s Sarasota County chapter chair, on
Wednesday claimed policies that allow transgender students to use
facilities consistent with their gender identity had been implemented
across the county without the knowledge or consent of parents.
Another Moms for Liberty Sarasota chapter member said the state — and
the nation — was witnessing a “wholescale erosion of girls rights in
order to protect transgender students.”
She cited an incident that gained national attention last year in
Loudoun County, Va., where the parents of a teenage girl assaulted in a
school restroom accused her attacker of being “gender fluid.”
The student’s gender identity was never confirmed by authorities and a
policy allowing transgender students attending Loudoun County schools to
use facilities matching their gender identities was adopted after the
assault was reported.
Speakers at Wednesday’s meeting also included Charlene Cothran, a former
LGBTQ rights activist turned “ex-gay” advocate.
“Parents absolutely have every right to be notified about bathroom and
locker room access for confused students,” she said. “And I say confused
students and not trans students – no girl has ever turned into a boy and
no boy has ever turned into a girl. There’s no such thing as a trans
student.”
Her comments were met with applause from the audience.
Many speakers during Wednesday’s board meeting voiced concerns that
while the rule does not explicitly bar transgender students from using
school facilities that align with their gender identity, it will likely
deter them from seeking to do so.
“At the beginning of this meeting we talked about being serious about
school safety,” Michelle Jewett, the mother of a transgender son, said
Wednesday. “You said school should be a safe haven. That should apply to
all of our students, and right now, our LGBTQ+ kids don’t feel that.”
Jewett said her son had been accepted by his teachers and his peers
while in school and was able to use the boy’s restroom.
“With a mustache and muscles, I don’t think anybody wanted him to enter
the girl’s restroom,” she said.
Rita Harris, a Democratic candidate for the Florida House, told board
members on Wednesday that it was their obligation to protect students
across the state, including transgender students, who face high rates of
attempted suicide and other mental health challenges tied to
discrimination and social stigma.
“This is America, we won’t accept discrimination,” Harris said. “I’m
counting on you to do the right thing.”
Florida’s Board of Education during Wednesday’s meeting also approved a
rule to suspend or revoke public primary school teachers’ licenses if
they engage in classroom instruction related to sexual orientation or
gender identity in violation of a new state education law known to its
critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
