Florida Board of Education adopts strict trans restroom policy

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.