More than 100 students staged a protest at a Missouri high school in response to a transgender student’s request to use girls’ locker room and bathroom.
Lila Perry, a 17-year old biologically male student, claims to have felt more like a girl than a boy since the age of 13 and asked the administration at Hillsboro High School for permission to use girls’ facilities on campus instead of a unisex bathroom.
The school complied with Perry’s request because of an policy issued by the US Department of Education that says districts cannot discriminate against students based on gender under Title IX.
"We will promote tolerance and acceptance of all students that attend our district while not tolerating bullying/harassing behaviors of any type in any form," Superintendent Aaron Cornman said in a statement.
Perry’s request prompted opposition from fellow students and parents of children at Hillsboro high school, who staged a two hour protest outside of the school on Monday, which follows a school board meeting that had to be moved to another location due to the large turnout of parents who wanted to discuss Perry.
“The girls have rights, and they shouldn’t have to share a bathroom with a boy,” said Tammy Sorden whose son attends the high school, according to St Louis Today.
"They should have the ability to do whatever they need to do in the privacy of the bathroom without having a male in there," Derrick Good, a lawyer and father of two daughters in the district, told KFOR.
Good is working with Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian non-profit organization, to draft a policy that would require students in the district to use either restrooms and locker rooms according to their biological gender or gender-neutral facilities.
“It’s a violation of my daughters’ rights to privacy to not have a policy,” he told New York Times.
