In Fairfield, IA there has been much contention over President Obama’s unconstitutional power grab over school bathrooms and locker rooms. The Des Moines Register I noted earlier today have mainly been writing human interest stories and have not adequately represented the opposing view of policies made for transgender persons, especially as it pertains to schools. They finally wrote an article addressing the tension after initially blowing it off.
The FAMiLY Leader who have been working with parents and activists in the community notes the frustration people have with the biased coverage.
Vandalism. Black armbands. A “hit list.” Death threats. Bullying. Parents afraid of losing their jobs. Girls leaving campus just to go to the bathroom. Students telling law enforcement they’re scared to go to school, afraid the high school in Fairfield, Iowa, may soon erupt in violence.
The situation in Fairfield is a lot worse than the media has reported, in large part, because parents and students are afraid to tell the story – or at least, afraid no one will tell their story fairly.
Fairfield Community Schools Superintendent Dr. Laurie Noll told KTVO-TV the majority of students are accepting of new policies put into place at the end of the last school year in compliance with a “Dear Colleague Letter” issued in May by the Obama administration, which dictates schools allow students who “identify” as transgender to use the bathroom, locker room, sports team, even overnight hotel room of the opposite sex.
Noll told KTVO that outside of a vandalism incident, there was no verifiable misconduct happening at the school. End of story.
The FAMiLY Leader, a conservative Christian public policy organization in Iowa, then shared stories they had collected from parents, youth pastors and students in Fairfield.
- Within 24 hours of the Obama administration’s Dear Colleague Letter, a Fairfield girl “identifying” as a boy left on a school music trip to St. Louis and, in accordance with the new guidelines, bunked in the boys’ hotel room for the trip. After she returned, her car was vandalized.
- Shortly thereafter, two female students were in the girls’ locker room changing clothes when male students walked in, boasting, “This is how it is now. We’re going to do what we want.”
- A boy reported using the urinal in the men’s room, when a biological female entered, stood next to him, pulled down her pants, and used the adjacent urinal.
- LGBTQ students began passing out black armbands to support the mandate and the girl whose car was vandalized. Those who chose not to wear them were shunned and taunted as “haters,” “bigots,” and “rednecks.”
- A girl posted a “hit list” on the Internet, listing Fairfield students she deemed as “homophobes” who needed to be “hit.”
- Many youth uncomfortable with bathrooms being a political “war zone” and opposite biological parts in their bathrooms tried to hold their restroom needs until they could get off campus. Hy-Vee employees reported that many high school youth came there at lunch or immediately after school and rushed to the store’s bathroom.
- While pro-LGBTQ students wore color-coded T-shirts indicating their support for the bathroom policy, students wearing Christian-themed T-shirts, including one that read, “Love the person, hate the sin. Jesus loves you,” were told to change out of them. When a mother (who asked TFL not to be identified) confronted the school about her son’s legal rights and asked why her child was forced to change his Christian-themed shirt, she said, the principal told her that her son “needed to learn to be tolerant.”
Read the rest of their article here.
If you are a parent, teacher, youth pastor or student who would like to share what these policies have done in your school feel free to contact us and tell us about it.