Michigan parents are suing Vicksburg Community Schools over a policy that allows boys to use girls’ restrooms after four female students discovered an exposed male in their bathroom. Filed in the district court for the Western District of Michigan last week, the lawsuit accuses the district, its superintendent, assistant superintendent, and two principals of seven civil rights and Title IX violations.
The district secretly allows biological males to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, the lawsuit alleges. The four plaintiffs are all minor students at Vicksburg High School, and the school’s policy permitting students of one sex to use restrooms with members of the opposite sex was allegedly unbeknownst to the girls until they discovered a biological male standing in their bathroom.
When female students informed administrators at Vicksburg High School that there were males exposing themselves in the restroom, the administrators said, “It’s fine,” adding that the female students should “tolerate it” and make the situation as “natural” as possible. School officials told the girls to “look away,” according to the lawsuit.
On one occasion, a biological male “stared down” one of the female students in a “threatening manner, as if [she] was the one in the wrong restroom, causing [her] to fear for her safety.”
Female students feel harassed, shamed, and bullied and say that the school district has allowed them to be subject to indecent exposure. Due to “privacy concerns,” school officials claim, the district can not disclose how many biological males are allowed to use the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms.
“Although Plaintiffs are hard-working, high achieving students, the school has discriminated against them and violated their privacy rights by allowing male students to dress as girls and use the girls’ multi-user private restrooms and locker rooms,” the case reads. “In some situations, it has caused Plaintiffs and other biologically female students to be fearful, to stay away from the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, to hold their urine the entire day, and on at least one occasion cause one of the Plaintiffs significant embarrassments during her menstrual cycle because she was fearful of using the girls’ restroom.”
The school district claims its policy is necessary to ensure a safe environment for transgender students.