Vermillion Schools sets course towards wide-ranging public battle over the transgendered bathroom/locker room issue.

Uh oh.

You remember that issue over transgendered individuals participating in sports and using bathrooms opposite of their birth gender? It’s back. And it’s going to be badder than ever.

This past legislative session, there was more than a bit of a stink over it, but we managed to move past the issue, because there really wasn’t any need to get hot and bothered over the issue, because except for arguing, it wasn’t prescient. It was more hullabaloo at the state level than it was the local level.

Until this week. Because the issue has been simmering in one of our university communities, and it started to boil over last night. And the Vermillion School Board has put the issue front and center in policymakers crosshairs, and pitted parents who vehemently disagree with boys being in girls bathrooms and vice versa against those who don’t think it’s a problem.

And I’d guarantee that also means we’re going to see it in Pierre once again, except this time with a little more urgency, because there’s a real world example to point to:

The Vermillion School Board spent nearly two hours Wednesday evening receiving public comment on a passionate topic – the restroom gender policy for the district.

The issue became the focus of attention when Vermillion School Superintendent Damon Alvey told board members last month that from time to time, requests are received for students to be able to use bathrooms opposite of their birth gender.

Read (and listen to) the entire story here.

And in case you wanted to see what Vermillion parents are going to be fighting with each other over….

Vermillion School Transgendered Bathroom Sample Policies by Pat Powers on Scribd

Students will be allowed to use the restroom and locker room that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school. No student will be required to use facilities that conflict with his or her gender identity consistently asserted at school. A transgender student or any other student who has a need or desire for increased privacy may be given the option of using a separate or private restroom or changing area, such as a single stall restroom, if such is available. No student shall, on account of their transgender status, be required to use such separate facilities.

The determination of consistently asserted gender may be determined in collaboration of any the following –parent/guardian, counselor, and/or building administrator. This policy does not require a student to provide any documentation about a gender dysphoria diagnosis but does require that the identity be consistently asserted.

As I said. “Uh oh.”

I get the distinct feeling that there’s going to be a battle involving parents, school boards, politicians at all levels, the SDSHAA, and given that we have a Democrat President, very possibly the federal government thrown in for good measure. This issue promises to be hard fought on either side, and I’d guarantee that we’ll see more than one bill coming in January.

I was communicating with one parent tonight who expressed that a number of parents “are trying to figure out if we can homeschool our kids successfully with our busy schedules,” and they’re “trying to get the word out to state legislators to let them know” about what’s taking place.  Yeah, I can guarantee that legislators are going to know.

And the battle in Vermillion over kids being in the bathrooms opposite of their birth gender is going to be an issue that will be one of the major flashpoints for conflict this next legislative session.

13 thoughts on “Vermillion Schools sets course towards wide-ranging public battle over the transgendered bathroom/locker room issue.”

  1. Two points. First, I hope no parents are trigger happy enough to start homeschooling their kids because this is being discussed. Second, I wonder if they have consulted any legal professionals in arriving at this rule. It seems very loose, and much looser than SDHSAA provisions. I don’t think it would hold up in court as there is very little oversight or threshold to allow such actions to occur.

    We will see.

    1. Homeschooling can be a very good option for a lot of people, and parents can then make sure their kids aren’t being bombarded with the left-wing propaganda which is prevalent in public schools. I would hope a lot of parents will also consider private schools where morality is still a thing.

    2. School policies on this topic have been decided in a number of courts. All of them have ruled that policies being sought by Deutsch and his culture warrior crew will be dead on arrival once they pass. See in particular, GG v. Gloucester County School Board. The US Supreme Court this past June upheld a 4th Circuit decision that held that policies that required separate bathrooms, etc. violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX.

      Time to fund yet another lawsuit that will go nowhere and cost the taxpayers?

  2. It just would not be South Dakota without an annual strange fixation with Anti-Transgender related bills being introduced during the legislative session.

    Did another pandemic start being transgender related years ago? Could this be due to the “gene serum” vaccination conspiracy theory part of the micro chip Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation scheme to de-populate the world all pushed by the fringe and extreme anti-vaxxers that are in the SDGOP? Lord only knows!

    What is happening is that these kids who happen to be Transgender, their families and friends that love them are being scapegoated with a great deal of misinformation out there for political gain, fundraising and to distract from short and long term issues South Dakota has faced which would require political courage. Those who are Transgender come from Conservative families too.

    Given my past sincere attempts to educate, research policies and provide that info, travel to Pierre, stay at a motel by myself at my own expense only to watch that info be cherry picked, distorted to keep driving a false narrative that results in painful and costly collateral damage on multiple levels for those considered politically expendable. I defer this to the South Dakota High School Activities Association. They have done an incredible job researching and implementing thoughtful policies that protect everyone, reduce the risk of conflict so these kids can safely focus on a positive educational experience.

    1. It is good to try to be accommodating where you can. It doesn’t seem like kids who say they are trans are trying to lie or mislead anyone.

      However, that doesn’t mean they are correct about the subject of gender, either.

      More broadly, the logic on which we make policy decisions cannot be “if someone is suffering, then what they say about the source of their suffering is true, and everyone has to agree with it and budge to accommodate it.” (Conveniently, this rule is now disproportionately applied to people on the left, whose suffering, both real and imagined, is currently given enormous weight in our society, whereas conservative complaints of suffering are often dismissed as products of wrongheadedness and closemindedness. Doesn’t the suffering that traditionally-minded people would experience under a transgender friendly policy regime have some weight and existence? Yes. Wouldn’t it be costly to affirm transgenderism if its presuppositions turn out not to be true? Yes. But, conveniently, these concerns are often brushed away by tarring them as “discrimination,” a framing that just takes the progressive position for granted.)

      So, your point about not doing harm is a good one as far as it goes, but it can quickly become a screen for just ramrodding leftism down people’s throats — which people kind of object to.

      Many conservatives have a rational, principled stance in this debate and are fighting against leftist power tactics, not trans kids per se. People are waking up to the fact that the premises of many progressive polices are either false or made up, and that they must therefore resort to naked mobilizations of power to shut down debate on them. Unlike the right, the left now has the means to do that in many contexts.

  3. The board has made a decision. Let them live with it. Local control is important, and now the school district patrons can decide the next step. That step may be to pull the kids from school and enroll them somewhere else, have meetings to make the board reconsider, file a lawsuit. It is not up to the legislature to spend (once again) a lot of time on this issue. So far this involves one school. Let them battle it out locally.

  4. Make a separate bathroom for any kid deciding he or she feels he is a different sex. Boys, and they are physically boys, do not belong in girls bathrooms, and vice versa. This is not discrimination, this is common sense.

    1. 99% of the time yes, but that isn’t the whole story.
      You can be born female and have XX chromosomes and grow a penius dring puberty of you have 5-alpha-reductase deficiency.
      You can Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome were you have XY chromosomes but are physically “Female” and can even give birth.
      You can have an abnormality with the SRY gene and where you are physically female but have XY Chromosomes or Physically Male but have XX Chromosomes
      Or you can have the rare XXY Males, Females with Turner Syndrome who have only a single X chromosome, or males with Klinefelter syndrome who have 2 X chromosomes.

      1. And these conditions you mention were all abnormal pathologies. I’ll bet you a DNA test on bruce Jenner will show XY.

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