School official backs transgender remark
The Associated Press
DENVER
– A Colorado school board member who said she has no regrets about
saying transgender students should use locker rooms that conform with
their biological sex has vowed to keep pushing for schools to ignore
court rulings on the transgender issue.
Delta
School District 50J school board member Kathy Svenson told The
Associated Press on Friday that transgender boys would pose a serious
safety risk to girls in girls locker rooms, and allowing transgender
girls into a boys locker room would raise privacy issues.
Svenson,
73, is in the second year of her four-year term but said she won’t run
for re-election because she would like to start her own school where she
could set her own rules regarding transgender and homosexual students.
Svenson
said she doesn’t believe there is such a thing as people who are
transgender, The Denver Post reported. Svenson said they are simply
confused.
Svenson said she was
flooded with criticism from activists about her comment, even though no
transgender students have asked to use the girls locker room at the
school about 30 miles southeast of Grand Junction.
In
Colorado, transgender people are allowed by law to access public or
workplace restrooms designated for the gender that matches their
identity. That policy was affirmed in June, when the Colorado Civil
Rights Division ruled that a 6-year-old transgender girl, who was born
male, could use the facilities for girls in her Fountain school.
Svenson
said she was talking about the use of school locker rooms, but the law
applies to all public spaces that are gender specific, including locker
rooms, said Krista Whipple, president of the Gender Identity Center of
Colorado.
Whipple said she
understands some people are uncomfortable with that idea. She said
Svenson’s comments reflect society’s attachment to defining identity
based on anatomy.
“Anatomy doesn’t define us as a person, who we are on the inside defines who we are,” Whipple said.
During
a public meeting in Delta in October, in response to questions about
school policy, Svenson said, “there would have to be castration to pass
something like this around here.”
She told the AP on Friday that she was
only trying to make a point in an effort to warn the school board it
should come up with a policy before it was forced to face the issue.
Some people in Delta County have called for the recall of Svenson, although no formal action has been taken.
In
turn, Svenson said constitutionalists and tea-party activists are
demanding the recall of the other four board members if they don’t
support her position.
Kurt Clay, assistant superintendent of Delta schools, said the district administration does not agree with Svenson’s views.
“We are nondiscriminatory. We welcome all students into our schools,” he said.
