Daily BrewU.S. school trustee says transgender male students can use girls washroom . . . if they’re castrated
It's fair to assume that Katherine Svenson is against the idea of allowing transgendered male high school students to use the girl's washroom at school.
The Delta County, Colorado, school trustee has nothing against them being transgendered. It's just that if they want to use the ladies', well, they should be castrated.
CBS affiliate NewsChannel 5 reports Svenson made the comments at an October school board meeting after handing out an article about new policies in California and Massachusetts that protect students who claim a gender different from the one they were born with. That includes allowing them to use whichever washroom they choose.
". . . [T]hey're actually talking about joining girls sports teams going in the girls locker rooms and bathrooms, and I just want to emphasize not in this district," Svenson said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by NewsChannel 5. "Not until the plumbing's changed. There would have to be castration in order to pass something like that around here."
She defended her comments later, saying she wanted to alert fellow board members about issues they may soon have to deal with.
"I don't have a problem if some boys think they are girls, I'm just saying as long as they can impregnate a woman, they're not going to go in girls locker-room," Svenson said in an interview.
[ Related : Canadian schools urged to develop policies to accommodate transgendered students ]
School district officials quickly distanced themselves from Svenson's views on castration, pointing to a recently adopted policy barring discrimination against any student.
"We truly believe in Delta County School District, that every student has different needs, and that we are here to address those individual needs," assistant superintendent Kurt Clay told NewsChannel 5.
California and other U.S. states implemented their policies in response to harassment and bullying of transgender students, the web site Thinkprogress.org said. The initiatives sparked increased instances of inflammatory rhetoric against transgender people, especially youth, it said.
The issue has flared in Colorado as well. Earlier this year, the state court's civil rights division ruled a six-year-old transgender named Coy Mathis could use the female bathroom in her school.
"Given the evolving research into the development of transgender persons, compartmentalizing a child as a boy or a girl solely based on their visible anatomy is a simplistic approach to a difficult and complex issue," the ruling said.
Thinkprogress said a group called the Pacific Justice Institute, which is campaigning for a referendum to overturn the California law, has been running a TV ad claiming a Colorado transgender teen was harassing classmates in the girls' washroom.
The video upset the transgender teen (identified only as Jane Doe) to the point she was put on suicide watch, Thinkprogress said.
[ Related: 'I'm glad that I told everybody:' transgender boy shares story at school ]
Canadian schools of course also have been struggling with ways to accommodate transgender kids as society seems to become more accepting of transgender identity.
"Thanks to social awareness and new language that’s evolving, young people and their families are able to identify and support youth at younger and younger ages," Kris Wells, a researcher with the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, told Canada AM in September.
Wells recommended schools determine who should know about a transgender student's identity, the school principal alone or teachers and/or students. School records and the way they're addressed by teachers should also reflect the gender identity of the student. And schools should work to break down stereotypes about transgenderism, he said.
Wells also recommends the students use the bathroom and change rooms of their preferred gender identity. Nothing about castration being a prerequisite.
