(The Daily Signal) — On Tuesday night, another Minnesota school district voted to allow boys who say they identify as transgender into girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.
Rochester Public Schools approved the “Supporting Transgender and/or Gender-Expansive Students” policy originally introduced on June 11.
The policy also allows a transgender-identifying boy to share a room with a girl on an overnight trip without the girl’s or her parents’ knowledge.
Though Jeannine Buntrock’s three children are zoned for Rochester Public Schools, she moved her daughters to a different district to avoid policies like these. She told The Daily Signal she hopes the policy will be overturned in the near future.
“It’s infuriating, but not surprising, as Rochester Public Schools have persistently refused to listen to parents on this and other troubling issues,” said Buntrock, who serves as president for her local Moms for Liberty chapter.
The vote makes official what the district and many others in Minnesota already practiced, Buntrock said.
“RPS now officially makes itself accountable for all damage that will result from important information about minors being withheld from the people who care for them most and are charged primarily with their well-being—their parents,” she said.
“It’s a battle for the mind,” Buntrock contends. “While girls are browbeaten into accepting males into what should be their safe spaces in order to be ‘socially acceptable,’ they’ll never see that they are losing their rights.”
Since the policy’s introduction last month, the district also added clarification that the policy does not permit “non-transgender or non-gender-expansive students (i.e., cisgender students)” to “use a facility that does not correspond to their gender identity.” The new language’s purpose is “to enforce appropriate use of facilities.”
The district did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about whether it’s unfair that some students have to adhere to “appropriate use of facilities” while others don’t.
The school board also added guidelines for parents on changing their child’s name, gender identity, and pronouns in the schools’ information system.
The policy permits transgender students to participate in school trips, including overnight trips, “in a manner that corresponds with their gender identity or in a manner that allows the student to feel the safest, included, and most comfortable.”
“In all cases, the school has an obligation to maintain the privacy of all students and cannot disclose or require the disclosure of the student’s gender identity to the other students or the parent(s)/guardian(s) of other students,” the guidelines say.
The district works with students to determine what spaces, including restrooms and locker rooms, are most “comfortable” for the student. Students will “in no case” be required to use the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender if they say it conflicts with their so-called gender identity.
“In situations where students are segregated by gender, students have the right to participate in any such activities or conform to any such rule, policy, or practice in a manner that aligns with their gender identity consistently asserted at school,” according to the policy.
Rochester Public Schools will make “reasonable” changes to the curriculum and train staff in order “to accommodate students whose gender identity aligns outside the binary male and female constraints.”
“By pandering to a tiny minority that activists are on record saying they wish to grow, RPS and all schools quietly implementing the same policies are betraying all girls,” Buntrock said. “Parents must help their daughters see that this is not OK, and that safe, single-sex spaces are a right fought for them by women in the past.”
Yet the mom of three says she is optimistic about the younger generation rising up against radical gender ideology.
“Just like girls could put an end to males in girls sports by refusing to participate, so can they put an end to males in female bathrooms and locker rooms by refusing to enter them when a male is present,” she said.
“It’s time for girls and women of all ages to step out in strength and say that enough is enough,” Buntrock said.
This article was originally published at The Daily Signal.
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporting fellow for The Daily Signal.
