Dozens of students walked out of Elida High School on Monday in protest of the school’s policy permitting transgender students to use the restroom of their gender identity.
Photos by Mackenzi Klemann | The Lima News
ELIDA — Dozens of students walked out of Elida High School on Monday in protest of the school’s policy permitting transgender students to use the restroom of their preferred gender identity.
It’s the latest sign of discontent in Elida where parents and community members have protested for months in hopes that the school board would rescind the policy, which critics say violates the privacy of female students who are uncomfortable sharing a restroom with members of the opposite sex.
“We’re upset about biological boys in the girls’ bathroom,” said freshman Charisma Akroye, who was one of the first students to walk out Monday.
“The school board hasn’t been listening,” she said.
The protest started small as Akroye and several other students walked out of the high school around noon Monday. They were joined by parents and concerned community members, who cheered and prayed outside the school for an end to “this evil.”
Dozens of other students walked out 20 minutes later.
Students were told they would receive after-school detention if they did not return to class after the protest, Superintendent Joel Mengerink told The Lima News via email. Still, students who returned after the protest were given a pass and sent back to class, he said.
The accommodations are part of the school district’s anti-discrimination policy, which permits transgender and non-binary students to use the restroom of their preferred gender identity on a case-by-case basis.
Board President Brenda Stocker, who faces re-election Tuesday, said the policy keeps Elida schools in compliance with federal case law, established by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Violating case law puts the district at risk of a lawsuit “that we would certainly lose,” she said during a candidate forum in October.
While the school district remodeled stalls in student locker rooms and restrooms to improve privacy and alleviate parents’ concerns, some residents are not convinced that case law is as binding as board members and administrators say.
Residents rejected a renewal levy in May in protest of the board’s refusal to rescind the policy. And the subject has dominated school board elections, with three of the six candidates pledging to adopt new rules requiring all students to use the restroom of their biological sex or a single-use family restroom.
“We can have a lawsuit from a transgender student or we can have lawsuits from Christian parents who have had enough of their child having to hold their bowels and not go to the restroom because they’re afraid of what they’re going to see,” candidate Jeff Point told The Lima News last month.
