Public school students are staging walkouts in opposition to pro-trans bathroom policies

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As school boards continue to ignore parental demands for student privacy and safety in bathrooms and locker rooms, more high schoolers are courageously speaking up and having an impact.

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Since September, students attending at least three school systems have walked out of class to protest bathroom policies that allow transgenders to use the private spaces of their chosen gender rather than their biological sex.

On Monday, for example, dozens of students at Elida High School in Ohio walked out after months of parental protests failed to move the school board to change the policy. Parents and community members joined the students and demanded an end to this “evil.”

“We’re upset about biological boys in the girls’ bathroom,” said Charisma Akroye, a freshman. “The school board hasn’t been listening.”

One of the most high-profile walkouts took place last week when students in Loudoun County, Virginia, protested the school’s policy that allows males who claim to be females use both the girls’ bathrooms and girls’ locker rooms — a policy that previously led to the sexual assault of two girls by a skirt-wearing male.

In 2021, a boy claiming to be gender fluid was legally allowed to use the girl’s restroom at a Loudoun County high school. In May, he went into the bathroom and raped a 14-year-old female student. The school then tried to cover up the assault, even twice calling the police on the girl’s father and having him arrested as he tried to speak at a school board meeting.

At that same meeting when the transgender policy was being considered, the school board claimed that no sexual assaults had ever occurred in the bathrooms. This was stated despite the fact that then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler had knowledge that a rape had occurred.

The school board voted to keep the policy in place and transferred the gender fluid boy to a different high school, where he sexually assaulted another girl.

Ziegler was later fired and indicted after a grand jury report found that he covered up the assaults.

Despite parental and student objections, these two horrifying assaults and subsequent coverup, and new instruction from the Virginia Department of Education to stop allowing students to use the locker room or bathroom according to their gender identity, Loudoun County Public Schools still allows males to use female locker rooms and restrooms.

So, on Wednesday, students at Woodgrove High School in Purcellville, Virginia, staged their walkout to make their opposition to the policy known. A female student told local television station WJLA that she no longer used the bathrooms at school, explaining, “It’s a massive safety risk, and they [LCPS] don’t do anything about it. And we express these concerns and they ignore us and write us off as right-wing crazies. We’re not crazy. We just don’t want to be in danger on a daily basis in this building.”

Meanwhile, a male student also wants the policy changed, calling it “an invasion of privacy.” He explained that when male students “are in our locker rooms and they are showering in the morning, natural-born females can walk in there as they please. And that is not okay. And it goes against what we believe in.”

Loudoun County students are hoping to achieve the same success that students at Perkiomen High School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, did after they staged a walkout in September. Hundreds of students walked out of class to protest after some female students said they were afraid.

Tim Jagger, who is the parent of a girl at the school, said that his daughter was “too upset and emotionally disturbed” to use the bathroom at school after encountering a male in one of the bathrooms.

Victoria Rudolph, a student at Perkiomen High School, also feels uncomfortable. She stated, “There needs to be some changes. It’s just uncomfortable seeing 19-year-old men or 18-year-old men in the bathroom.”

Some of the male students felt the need to protest to protect the female students. Student John Ott, who organized the protest, stated, “Kids were upset. Girls… we wanted to protect them. They were upset. They didn’t want men in their bathroom.”

Brandon Emery, another student, was also concerned, saying, “It makes me feel as if it’s me and my sister and the rest of us students’ rights are now compromised and not a priority to this school whatsoever.”

Parents previously had spoken out at school board meetings against the policy. “I know as an adult, I would not want to enter a bathroom and find a biological male in that space,” one parent said. “So why should we allow this for our precious children?”

Weeks after the students staged their walkout, the Perkiomen Valley School District board passed a policy requiring students to use the bathroom and locker room according to their biological sex.

Jagger thinks it was because of the walkout. “I believe it had to do with all the students voicing their opinion,” he said. “That was huge, the student walkout that day and the community members coming through and talking at the board meeting, voicing their opinion…. I was happy to see that they decided to change their policy.”

Jagger claimed that some board members didn’t realize the policy was allowing male students to use the girls’ restroom.

“They went back to the 2018 Policy 103 where they added gender identity into that as basically a safety thing and nondiscrimination clause, and then nobody was really informed that it actually extended out to bathrooms until my daughter had her experience, and I reached out to the principal where I was told what the policy was, and I made a post online,” he explained. “Several school board members didn’t even realize it, so it basically brought it to their eyes and then the community’s eyes. And then the kids in the school — obviously they were not happy about it, either.”

Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, had strong words for adults who are putting children in the position of having to protest to protect their privacy from the opposite sex, saying,

“American adults and parents should be ashamed of the fact that students are forced to protest for the right to not undress in front of someone of the opposite sex. The students and staff are protesting because the Left is forcing progressive adult sexual priorities on children as a way of justifying their own adult actions, and it’s not acceptable.”

It’s unfortunate that American students have to walk out of class to get a school board’s attention, but this is clearly the way forward to safeguard students. Students must speak out and stand up for their rights. Parents and the community must support them and get involved. Board members must be educated.

If people stay silent, the LGBTQ activists and their allies populating school boards will continue to push their abusive policies on minors. And make no mistake: It is abusive to require students to use the bathroom, change, or shower in front of people of the opposite sex. Schools have plenty of options to make accommodations for transgender children without putting others at physical risk.

The students at these various school districts should be commended for insisting that they too count and that the privacy, safety, and comfort of the majority matters. Such courage will inspire others to be courageous, and if enough students and parents demand that the school do right by them, eventually the schools will be forced to listen.

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