Transgender issue roils high school

A transgender student who changes in a boys locker room at Rancho Bernardo High School has triggered a dispute over a 2-year-old state law that seeks to accommodate such students.

The Poway Unified School District board meeting was packed Tuesday night with people raising a broad array of questions about student rights.

Holly Franz, one of the speakers at the meeting, said she learned when the semester resumed three weeks ago that a student who was born female but identifies as male was changing in the locker room.

Franz said she understands that the district has to follow the law that allows the student to use the locker room, but she would like the school to make accommodations for other students who may feel awkward about the situation. She also urged the board of trustees to notify all students if there is a transgender student where other students change clothes.

Advocates for transgender rights responded by starting a petition on Change.org asking the district to take no action regarding the issue. As of Tuesday afternoon, about 1,200 people had signed the online petition.

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Supporters of the petition said they do not want the district to make accommodations that would segregate transgender students. Franz said she is not asking for segregation, but rather wants all students to have the option to have privacy in the locker room.

The issue was raised during the public comment portion of the school board meeting, so trustees could take no action Tuesday night because the discussion was not part of the agenda, nor did they suggest staff consider a course of action.

“My son came home from school and told me there was a girl using the boys locker room,” Franz said before the meeting. “This is someone he’s known for years and has always been a girl. My son was very upset by this, and I called the principal.”

Franz said she understands that school districts have to make accommodations for transgender students because of a law that went into effect in January 2014 under Assembly Bill 1266. She’s upset because she says the district has not taken into consideration the feelings of other students.

“Our position is all about our kids’ modesty and privacy,” she said. “I’ve been contacted by so many students, and they all have their own reasons for privacy.”

Franz said she would like the school to provide curtains or some other means of ensuring privacy.

Siobhan Garry, 17, a Westview High School senior who started the Change.org petition, had no problem with the idea of creating private changing areas for all students.

“Every student finds changing in the locker room fairly uncomfortable to a certain degree,” said Siobhan, a transgender student who identifies as nonbinary, or not exclusively male or female.

Early on, some districts admitted struggling with the new rules.

The law states that K-12 public school students who are transgender or gender nonconforming are allowed to participate in classes and activities without regard to their birth sex. It also allows transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms without regardless of their sex at birth.

Superintendent John Collins issued a statement before the meeting saying the district has tried to accommodate all students’ rights since implementing the law.

“Over the past two years, we have worked to ensure every students’ right to privacy, as well as every students’ right to feel safe, valued, and included on our campuses,” he wrote.

Kathie Moehlig, a parent of a student in the district, did not speak at the meeting but said she was asked to be the spokeswoman for the transgender student’s family as executive director of TransFamily Support Services.

“This is the first issue I’m aware of that anyone has brought up with AB 1266,” she said. “In working with people at the Transgender Law Center in California, it’s the first one that they know of.”

A representative of the center could not be reached Tuesday.

Before the law was enacted and shortly thereafter, some opponents predicted problems, including some serious situations where boys would pose to be transgender to use girls’ facilities. Such issues never seemed to materialize, and a statewide referendum effort aimed at repealing the law failed in 2014.

Moehlig said she is concerned that the request for student privacy by Franz could result in segregation of transgender students.

If the proposal indeed is for privacy areas that could be used by all students, such as curtains that provide changing areas at lockers, Moehlig said she would have no objection.

She does oppose the request that the school notify all families if there is a transgender student using a locker room.

“She’s fighting for things that the laws are clear about, and I applaud the district and principal of Rancho Bernardo High School in knowing the law and their legal obligation of protecting the students,” she said.

Christine Paik, Poway Unified Director of Communications, said the district cannot disclose that information because of privacy laws.

Franz said she understands that the district is following the law — but says it hasn’t been implemented well, and she is considering taking legal action against the state to gain more privacy for students.

While the law requires school districts to allow transgender students to use the restrooms and locker rooms they choose, it does not specify what steps each school should take to accommodate them and other students.

After the law went into effect, a county school official said at that time that schools would address the issue on the individual needs of students and on a case-by-case basis.

“Schools are working with students on an individual basis based on what they are comfortable with or what their needs are,” said Don Buchheit, senior director for student support services with the San Diego County Office of Education.

In San Diego Unified, all schools have private restrooms available for any student to use, and middle and high school students have options for changing in private in locker rooms.

“We haven’t had any issues that I’m aware of like we heard in Poway,” said Linda Zintz, communications director of San Diego Unified School District.

Zintz said all schools created private areas that could be used by either transgender students or other students in locker rooms after the law went into effect.