Two Virginia high schoolers, who expressed discomfort in a female student’s presence in the boys’ locker room, have been suspended and deemed guilty for sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination by the school district.
Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) claims that the students, reportedly Christians, violated the district’s “Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students” policy. Regarding restroom and locker rooms, the policy states that “Students shall be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity.”
The March incident occurred at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn. The trans identifying female secretly recorded the male students in the school locker room. In the recording, students questioned the presence of a female student, saying “I’m so uncomfortable with a girl” and “Why is there a girl?” The video circulated to the school officials. Although it is illegal to record inside locker rooms, the LCPS determined that no privacy laws were violated because the students were not exposed.
LCPS initially declared three students guilty for sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination under Title IX. However, one student was later acquitted. The two Christian students reportedly have been given a 10-day, in-school suspension period and are required to speak with school administrators to discuss a correctible action plan. The students are at risk for having the suspension on their permanent records.
However, the students are fighting back. Their families have sought legal help from the Founding Freedoms Law Center (FFLC).
“By making an example out of these boys and punishing them for complaining about a girl being in their locker room,” FFLC attorney Josh Hetzler said, “LCPS shows its defiance of the US Department of Education’s Title IX compliance demands.”
Through statements, parents on both sides have been outspoken in their response to the district’s decision.
“My heart is devastated by the injustice of branding a 16-year-old boy with a guilty determination that could follow him for life,” said Renae Smith, the mother of one of the students who was suspended, “simply because he dared to state the obvious: that his privacy was violated when the opposite sex was allowed in his locker room, and even to the point where he was videotaped secretly.”
“Instead of protecting students’ privacy and acknowledging biological reality, the school system is punishing innocent boys with trumped-up charges that could jeopardize their college and career futures,” said Seth Wolfe, the father of the other student. “Every parent should be alarmed—because if it can happen to our child, it can happen to yours.”
Stone Bridge High School is no stranger to incidents involving students entering spaces designated for the opposite sex. In 2021, a female student was sexually assaulted by a male student who entered the women’s locker room wearing a skirt. The school sent the student to another high school in LCPS. There, the student, who afterward was charged and convicted for his actions, assaulted another female student.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order earlier this year mandating agencies to remove and cease issuing “all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.” The order rejects “the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true,” stating that “men” refers to biological males and “women” refers only to biological female. However, the LCPS continues to defy Title IX’s protective measures and the executive order.
