CLAY COUNTY, W.Va. — Clay County school officials are believed to be the first in West Virginia to publicly reject a federal directive issued in May requiring public schools across the U.S. to allow transgender students access to the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity, not their gender at birth.
Kenneth Tanner, superintendent of schools in Clay County, moved quickly — within a week of the announcement — to send out a letter to students, parents and school staff members informing them Clay County would not be following the notice from the Obama Administration.
“We were getting a number of calls when the announcement first came out,” Tanner said. “Parents were already calling, some of them to express their concerns, and others to notify us that, if we were putting both sexes in the same bathrooms, they would be withdrawing their children from public school.”
Tanner said what those parents feared was not going to happen in Clay County on his watch and, he claimed, he has the support of members of the Clay County Board of Education.
“I don’t have the conscience to say to a middle or high school female that I’m going to allow biological males to come into the bathroom with you or into the shower room or to share the same bed on a field trip either,” Tanner said on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
On Tuesday of this week, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia sent a letter to school board members, principals and superintendents across the Mountain State, calling the debate about sex-segregated facility access for transgender students “unnecessary.”
“Providing access to sex-segregated facilities consistent with one’s gender identity is important for the safety and well-being of transgender students who cannot be excluded from the right that all children in West Virginia have to an education free from discrimination and harassment,” those with the ACLU wrote.
Excluding transgender students from the same restrooms used by other students “sends a message to transgender students and their peers that transgender students should be treated differently and that their mere presence in the same facilities used by their peers is unacceptable.”
SEE THE FULL ACLU LETTER HERE.
Going forward, Tanner said transgender students in Clay County would have access to individual restroom facilities, but not shared spaces.
“We have made accommodations in the past for children, for whatever reason, that needed additional privacy with regard to bathrooms,” he said. “Our goal has been to provide privacy for every child.”
Other students notice, officials with the ACLU argued, when transgender students utilize separate facilities.
As for the privacy rights of other students, “Only a policy that disregards transgender students’ gender identity would have that effect. It certainly would not make anyone feel comfortable for a transgender boy — whom everyone knows as a boy and looks like other boys — to use the girls’ room,” the organization’s letter said.
West Virginia is one of eleven states challenging the directive, which indicated public schools that did not comply could potentially risk losing federal funding based on Title IX, with a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the directive “forces a seismic shift in local schools” and has pledged to defend any attempts to reduce funding for West Virginia schools based on it.
In an earlier letter to county and school officials, Morrisey maintained the directive cannot legally be enforced.
Tanner agreed. “That’s just a mandate that was put out that we do not believe carries the force of law,” he said.