John Matthews
FAIRFAX — (WMAL) Testimony over a proposal to offer human rights protection to transgender students sparked shouting from the audience at a Fairfax County School Board meeting Thursday night.
About a dozen parents and students spoke out in favor of the proposed policy, including a transgender man, Tyler Engleman, who said, “When I was an FCPS student, I experienced firsthand the kind of harassment that children get from their peers.” Engleman, who said he is now a coach in the school system, noted that a lot of attention has been given to the use of bathrooms.
“While there’s not been one single incident of a transperson harassing anyone in the bathroom, there have been many reports of transpeople being harrassed in the bathroom,” he said. “Transpeople don’t go to the bathroom to stir up trouble. They go to the bathroom to do what they need to do and get out,” he added.
Just after Engleman spoke, a man in the audience interrupted to complain that parents who opposed the proposed policy change were not given enough time to sign up and speak after amendments to the proposal were added late Wednesday evening.
“Equal time! Equal time! Discrimination is the moral basis of every decision… discrimination is moral. Give us rights for OUR children!,” the man shouted as he was escorted out of the building.
At issue was an amendment to the county’s Student Rights and Responsibilities handbook proposed late Wednesday evening by School Board Member Ryan McElvain, who wrote in an email:
I move to amend the motion by replacing the first sentence of Chapter I, Section J with the following: No student in FCPS shall, on the basis of age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity.
According to Board Member Elizabeth Schultz, the Board did pass McElvain’s amendment Thursday night, despite a long-standing promise by members not to make any changes to the transgender policy without a full opportunity for the public to respond.
“Nobody knows who can play on what athletic team, who has access to what locker room, who has access to what hotel room on overnight trips,” Schultz told WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall. “We keep putting things into practice, and we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. We keep inching further and further down the road of eroding the rights of some on behalf of the rights of others,” she added.
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