WENTZVILLE — National and statewide civil rights organizations on Friday took aim at the Wentzville School District’s new policy restricting transgender students’ use of bathrooms and locker rooms, calling for residents to target and overturn them.
Officials with the LGBTQ+ advocacy groups the Human Rights Campaign, in Washington, D.C., and PROMO, in Missouri, accused the board of not understanding transgender students, and called the policy a thinly veiled attempt to discriminate against them.
“If this was about privacy they would build floor-to-ceiling stalls like what you see in a changing room at a clothing store, but they aren’t, because this policy has nothing to do with privacy,†said Cathryn Oakley, senior legal policy director for the Human Rights Campaign.
She pointed to similar proposals in North Carolina and Texas that were met with “huge backlash†from members of the public, an outcome that she hopes is replicated by residents in Wentzville.
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“People in those communities maybe didn’t understand what it means to be transgender, but they certainly understood that there were children being discriminated against,†Oakley said. “A dot on the map or not, Wentzville is a very real place and there are very real transgender kids who are going to school there and there are real life impacts to this proposal.â€
Board members voted 5-2 on Thursday to require students, faculty and any person inside a district school building to use restrooms and locker rooms of the “individual’s reproductive biology at birth,†starting April 3.
It’s the latest example of culture war debates hitting St. Charles. The county in recent months has seen fights over sexually explicit books in public libraries, calls for gender-neutral outfits for library workers, allegations of race discrimination at Wentzville schools, and student walkouts to protest the rollback of diversity and equity programming in the nearby Francis Howell School District.
Jen Olson, the Wentzville board member who drafted the new bathroom policy, said her proposal was driven by student privacy concerns and “did not have any of the buzzwords that people talk about.â€
“This is about the expectation for privacy based on your biological sex, and it has been the standard since we started using bathrooms in public,†Olson said when she introduced the policy in September. She reiterated that point Thursday night, as did Board President Shannon Stolle, who voted in favor of the proposal alongside Katie Lyczak, Renee Henke, David Lewis and Olson.
Board members backed Olson’s proposal over a policy supported by the district’s administration. That plan would have allowed transgender students to continue to be able to request to use bathrooms and locker rooms of their preferred gender.
Transgender students will be able use single-person bathrooms and locker rooms if they are available in their particular school building, according to the new policy. Olson said this is meant to include students who are uncomfortable changing in front of other students.
Attendees were split at the meeting Thursday at North Point High School.
“This is not my Wentzville,†Maegan Kurz, a district parent, told school board members. “My Wentzville accepts the younger generation for who they are, and who they dream to be.â€
Wentzville School Board member Jason Goodson, who is not seeking reelection, said the new policy reeked of bias against members of the LGBTQ+ community and said the district’s legal counsel had repeatedly advised the board to not enact any policy in this “gray area of law.â€
“Something that we have been counseled on throughout is that objectivity in policymaking really matters, and the perception or potential for perception of bias could exacerbate our problems, create more legal risk and more potential damages,†Goodson said.
He referenced comments made by board members in closed session that referred to LGBTQ students as “The Alphabets†and to high school Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs as “swingers clubs.â€
He and board member Julie Scott voted against the proposal.
“Regardless if it is one student or if it is 2,000 students, it doesn’t matter,†Scott said. “Every student needs a place to go to the restroom safely and our current procedure allows for that to happen without implementing this policy.â€
Goodson’s concerns were reiterated by Wentzville Superintendent Danielle Tormala, who said the policy exposes the district to lawsuits alleging discrimination against transgender students under the federal government’s Title IX and Equal Protection Clause.
Tormala told the board that less than one one-hundredth of a percent of the district’s 18,000 students are transgender.
Scott said she has concerns that the policy would soon ensnare the district in a lawsuit.
Tom Bastian, communications director of the ACLU of Missouri, said his organization is actively involved in a lawsuit involving a similar policy enacted by a school board in Platte County, north of Kansas City.
Robert Fischer, communications director for PROMO Missouri, said teachers should reach out to transgender students.
“They need to pull those students aside and let them know that they are not alone,†Fischer said. “That conversation and acknowledgement that they are not alone is going to be so incredibly powerful.â€
The school district said Friday it was planning how to communicate, enact and enforce the policy now. It encouraged families to reach out to their schools for help and accommodations.