The Perkiomen Valley School Board in Pennsylvania has recently passed a policy mandating students and staff to use bathrooms that align with their biological sex. This decision, made by a 5-4 vote, applies to all restroom and locker room facilities in the district’s schools.
The policy largely became public discussion after a parent, Tim Jagger, found out his daughter was uncomfortable using the girls’ bathroom due to an encounter with a transgender individual at her school. The school clarified that students were allowed to use bathrooms corresponding to their identified gender, a practice linked to a nondiscrimination policy passed in 2018.
The original policy sparked outrage among students, leading to approximately 400 of them staging a walkout from Perkiomen High School on September 15. One of the protestors, 17-year-old Brandon Corner, expressed concerns about student safety, pointing to incidents of sexual assault in Virginia schools as potential consequences of such policies.
The New York Post’s editorial board echoed these concerns, asserting that “forcing teens, especially young women, to share deeply private spaces with members of the opposite sex is disrespectful and dangerous.”
On the opposing side, some LGBT activist board members and public members saw the policy as an attack on transgender students. They argued that it was un-American to ask a minority to give up their rights because the majority felt their own rights were more important. A motion to allow students to “use the restroom that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school,” failed to gain approval.
Following the decision, the Democrat-endorsed slate of Perkiomen Valley School Board candidates issued a statement, arguing that “acknowledgement of someone’s humanity is not a threat to anyone” and that “Discrimination should not be disguised as safety.”
The board members who voted in favor of the policy were Matthew Dorr; Don Fountain; Kim Mares; Jason Saylor; and Rowan Keenan. According to the policy, the district is now required to provide access to multi-user facilities based on sex, defined as “the biological sex classification based upon chromosomal structure and anatomy at birth.”
However, single-user facilities, previously available only to teachers, will be open to students who do not identify with their biological sex. With the upcoming board election on November 7, leftist candidates have started campaigning against the passage of Policy 720.
