According to a report, several girls on the Vermont volleyball team have been banned from using their lockers after filing a complaint with school officials over a transgender colleague.
Blake Allen told WCAX that she and her team now must change in a single stall bathroom. The dispute started when a Randolph Union High School transgender athlete made an “inappropriate remark” to some of the girls while changing in the locker room.
The comment was not mentioned in the report. Public identification has not been done for the transgender-athlete.
Allen acknowledged that Allen wasn’t the only one to raise these concerns. Some parents also reached out directly to school officials to let them know how they felt about the idea of their biological male child changing.
Allen said that “there are biological boys that enter the girl’s toilet, but never a bathroom,”
The school should relocate the transgender athletes, according to parents and students. However, officials have advised the girls to look for another area to change.
“They want all the girls that feel uncomfortable, so basically 10 girls, to get changed in a single-stall restroom. This would take more 30 minutes. Allen stated that changing one person would take over a minute, as if it were done individually.
WCAX-TV reported in an email that school officials replied to the families of affected players.
Vermont’s law states that students may play sports and use lockers rooms that correspond to their gender.
The school sent parents a second email informing them that they are investigating allegations that the girls had harassed transgender students.
Allen claimed that the incident was “a huge thing” that many students are talking of during the interview with WCAX-TV.
“Everyone’s asking why you aren’t allowed in the locker rooms? Allen added that Allen had been advised by her mother not to speak with the network because it could change the situation.
“I feel like because I expressed my opinion–that is, I don’t want any biological man changing with I–that there should be no harassment charges or bullying allegations against me. She suggested that they all should be dropped.
Randolph High School president Lisa Floyd explained to the network in an email, that when policies are violated disciplinary action will apply. She added that student safety is the “district’s number one priority.”
The policy of the state’s educational agency states that transgender students must use locker rooms and bathrooms. However, it also notes that a student who is not a member of the same gender should not be allowed to use a bathroom or locker room that contradicts their gender identity.
To keep a campaign promise President Joe Biden made in support of the LGBT community and to issue new laws, his administration has pressured schools to adopt policies giving transgender students the right use preferred pronouns, school bathroom facilities, and locker rooms.
Advocates for transgenderism have welcomed the new rules. However, critics claim that it reduces protections to women and girls who are most affected negatively by this hot topic.
Lia Thomas is a biological man who self-identifies as a female. She became the first transgender NCAA champion of women’s Division I by winning the 500-yard freestyle for women earlier this year. Thomas’s team was among those who reacted negatively to her win, as well as activists and other female athletes.
