Perkiomen Valley faces backlash after reversing restroom policy on ‘biological sex’

The new Democratic majority on the Perkiomen Valley school board voted Monday to rescind the district’s policy barring transgender students from using restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identities, reversing a ban put in place several months earlier by Republicans.

The decision, which passed 6-3, was praised by several community members with LGBTQ family and friends. One parent said her child, who is gender queer, hadn’t attended school since the fall and had senior year “destroyed” by the controversy — which involved a series of heated school board meetings and a student walkout in favor of the policy.

“It’s created a hostile learning environment for our children,” said the parent, Shona McGee, who said “Stop Trans” stickers were placed on stop signs around campus the day of the walkout. “I don’t think any of you would want this for your child, yet that’s what you’re asking for my child.”

But the vote spurred outrage from others who accused the board of endangering girls, raising the prospect of boys entering girls’ restrooms while voicing fears about transgender people.

“Satan has come for our children,” Heidi Brown, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the school board, told the board after the vote. “Children dancing around, males dressed as females in very provocative clothing, being cheered on — that’s what’s happening. That’s what’s going to be in our bathrooms.”

Matthew Barber, of Skippack Township, told the board that he would now have to find a way to explain to his daughters that “there will be guys in the bathroom with them.”

“I hope this school gets sued by every freaking parent out there,” Barber said. “I can’t wait until kids get attacked; it’s going to happen, and then they can hold every single one of you accountable because that’s what is going to happen.”

Board members who voted to rescind the policy said the decision didn’t mean boys were allowed to go in girls’ restrooms. “Trans men are men. Trans women are women,” said Tammy Campli, adding that students couldn’t claim a different identity to gain access to a certain restroom: Teachers and staff know which students “consistently assert themselves” as boys or girls, she said.

They also noted that the vote didn’t represent a sea change in district policy: Before October, the district had permitted transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identities, largely without any apparent controversy.

But uproar ensued during the fall after a man posted on social media that his daughter was distressed upon entering a girls’ restroom in the high school and believing a boy was also there. Republican board members said they were alarmed to discover that the administration had allowed transgender students full access to restrooms.

The board then enacted a policy specifying that multi-user restrooms and locker rooms would be divided based on “biological sex,” defined by a student’s “chromosomal structure and anatomy at birth.”

Critics of the policy said it marginalized transgender and nonbinary students based on unfounded fears. They also argued that it was illegal — noting a federal appeals court ruling in 2018 upholding a policy in the nearby Boyertown Area School District that allowed transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identity.

In that case, the court rejected the argument that the policy violated the privacy rights of cisgender students. It also found that giving transgender students access to single-user restrooms wasn’t a solution, but would “significantly undermine” their physical and psychological well-being, said Brian Subers, Perkiomen Valley’s solicitor.

Some board members pointed to that decision Monday. “I need to protect the district from the lawsuits we would probably lose,” said Robert Liggett.

In passing the policy in October, “we became an anomaly,” Liggett said. “We need to return this district to normalcy.”

Perkiomen Valley was among several districts locally that passed policies last year restricting transgender students. In Bucks County, the Pennridge School District enacted a restroom policy similar to Perkiomen Valley’s and barred transgender students from playing on sports teams matching their gender identity. Central Bucks also passed a similar athletics policy.

Like Perkiomen Valley, those districts also flipped to Democratic control in November’s elections; among its first actions, the new Central Bucks board suspended the transgender athlete policy.

But the election didn’t resolve the divide in Perkiomen Valley, with community members circulating a petition in favor of the district’s policy. One woman said she worried that the district would face an incident like one that garnered national attention in Loudoun County, Va., where a male student wearing a skirt sexually assaulted a female student in a girls’ restroom.

Supporters of the policy expressed broader anxiety about the implications of including transgender students, including that boys would take spots from girls on sports teams, even though the policy that was rescinded didn’t address participation in athletic programs.

A board member who voted to rescind the policy, Todd McKinney, said that “when we refuse to see people’s humanity, we have done something wrong as a society.”

“What I’m hearing tonight, some people are feeling the majority is always right,” said McKinney, who is Black. “If that were the case, I’d still be in chains.”