Derby school district at odds over transgender bathroom policy

In the latest battle over bathroom access, Derby school leaders decided Monday to continue allowing students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity while a community task force explores the issue.

“It’s my belief that our community is wise and our students are wise, and they’re mature enough to communicate with each other and present a recommendation to the board,” said board member Carolyn Muehring.

About two months ago, after the Obama administration directed public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity, Derby officials said they planned to follow the federal directive.

Since then, parents and others have formed Facebook groups and circulated petitions to either support the district’s decision or urge them to reconsider. During Monday’s school board meeting at Derby High School, several people on both sides of the issue addressed board members.

Jamie Black, 15, a Derby High sophomore who is transgender, said he felt relieved and happy when his principal told him in May that the school would comply with the federal directive. It meant he could use the boys’ bathroom if he chose to, rather than the girl’s bathroom or a bathroom in the nurse’s office.

“It made me feel like I was more accepted as a person. I felt like everything next year would be OK,” said Jamie, who is anatomically female. “But sadly, I was wrong.”

Within weeks, he said, people throughout Derby were challenging the new policy, and signs opposing it were placed in his neighborhood.

“If I hadn’t come out yet, I wouldn’t come out today, in this kind of environment,” he said, fighting back tears. “Me and my mother have talked about online school, but I want to be like other kids. I want to march in the band and feel accepted. I want to feel like a real boy.”

Opponents told board members they worry about student safety and privacy, and they urged leaders to postpone any changes to school bathroom policies until community members have had the chance to offer input and consider potential implications.

Andy Jones, a Derby father and student minister at South Rock Christian Church, said some church members have talked about pulling their children out of Derby schools if board members don’t reverse their decision.

“One question I’ve never heard in this entire situation is: What is the wise thing to do?” Jones said. “Is there a reason the vast majority of other schools in Kansas didn’t rush to a decision? Is there a reason the Kansas Board of Education voted not to follow the directive?

“Could it be that instead of those schools being behind the times, they’re choosing to be wise with this issue and the process by which a decision is being made?”

Kansas education officials say they’re dealing with transgender issues more frequently than in years past. Lawmakers in several states, including Kansas, have debated laws requiring students to use bathrooms according to their anatomical gender at birth or resolutions objecting to the federal guidance on bathroom access.

In June, the Kansas State Board of Education voted to ignore the directive, arguing that local schools are best suited to decide how to handle issues transgender students face, including which bathrooms they are allowed to use.

After weeks of debate in Derby, superintendent Craig Wilford proposed two options to board members Monday: Stay with the current policy, allowing transgender students wider access to bathrooms; or, return to the district’s earlier practice of dealing with transgender students on a case-by-case basis, directing them toward a co-ed bathroom in the school nurse’s station.

With either option, Wilford said, he planned to assemble a task force of students, administrators, community members and others to discuss the issue and present findings to the board. By verbal consensus, the board opted to stick with the current policy.

Mark May, a Derby father of eight, opposes the decision and started a Facebook page – Derby Parents Action Group – which has about 600 members. He said he worries that any high school boy could take advantage of the new policy and go into a girls’ bathroom or locker room.

“This has nothing to do with being anti-gay or anti-LGBT. It has nothing to do with hate or discrimination or anything like that. We realize that everybody has rights,” he said.

“Our concern has been, how do we safeguard against the garden-variety creep – the adolescent boy who sees this as a chance to go into a girls’ restroom?”

Amanda Brubaker, who started a Facebook page titled Derby Community Members Supporting Trans Youth, called those concerns “insulting.”

“I think that it is absolutely wrong to imply that our schools in Derby are unsafe,” she said.

Alyssa Dehncke, who graduated from Derby High in 2014, told board members Monday that she supports the new policy of allowing transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.

“I don’t know what anyone else does in the bathroom, but my friends and I, we just go pee and wash our hands and leave,” Dehncke said.

“Faking being transgender just to get a peek into the ladies’ locker room isn’t very likely, because if they have to fake it then they also get the stigma and the bullying that comes with being transgender,” she said. “And I think that’s a bigger deterrent than most people think.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Derby school district at odds over transgender bathroom policy."