Virginia School Board Member Sympathized With Trans-Identifying Sex Offender Who Exposed Himself in Women’s Locker Room

Sex offender Richard Kenneth Cox claimed to be transgender in order to access women’s bathrooms and locker rooms in Virginia where he exposed himself to women and young girls. When he reached out to a local school board member using an alias to complain about a pool’s locker-room policy and the alleged transphobic treatment he faced, he received a sympathetic reply.

Arlington School Board member Kathleen Clark told Cox that she hoped he “did not experience transphobic statements from the staff. You should be able to use the showers and changing rooms that you are most comfortable using.”

Cox reached out to Clark via email using the alias “Riki Cox” to plead his supposed “right” to use women’s facilities, new documents show. It’s unclear whether Clark knew Cox was a sex offender when she responded to his email.

Cox used women’s facilities multiple times in Northern Virginia, including at an Arlington Public Schools-operated pool locker room. Because of the district’s policy that allows transgender-identifying individuals to use whichever facilities align with their chosen gender identity, Cox was allowed unfettered access to shower and expose himself around women and girls.

Cox decried women who complained about the presence of a man in their locker-rooms and bashed the women’s concerns as discrimination, according to emails obtained by Defending Education and first reported by 7News.

In an email sent to Clark on October 28, 2024, weeks after multiple parents complained about Cox’s presence in their daughters’ locker rooms, Cox identified himself as part of the “transgender community.” He asked Clark where she stood on the issue of transgender locker-room policies, so he knew who he should vote for.

Cox also said that any women who complain about the presence of a male in their private spaces “should be invited to use the single locker room.”

“They are the ones that should be isolated before casting off me or other transgender people trying to be part of our community and not be treated like freaks,” he wrote to Clark. “I am writing you because there are multiple people running for School Board this year who claim to support the rights of LGBT people, and I want to know what you will do to reverse this decision of the Washington Liberty Swimming Pool before I cast my vote.”

The rule Cox references is one Washington-Liberty implemented after multiple women reported seeing an exposed male in the locker room showers. In response to complaints, the pool posted signs that asked individuals who use the shower but not the pool to use the single locker-room, “away from everyone else, like they are some kind of freak or something,” Cox, who claimed his name was “Riki,” said.

In a follow-up email, Clark touted her record on queer advocacy.

“For background, I have worked with Turnout.org in SF in my role as Co-Chair of one of the Equality & Belonging groups at Gap Inc.,” she wrote. “We put together a transgender/non-binary competency training for our E&B teams last year to help educate folks on how to be supportive for their children and an ally to the community . . . my expectation is that our community and school system are inclusive.”

Cox then said pool staff had “offended” him at the locker room.

“They literally asked me how much longer I was going to be in the shower, and directed other patrons to use the individual changing room while I was in the full locker room,” he wrote. “This is again sending the message that a transgender person is a freak and I guess not normal and beautiful like everyone else.”

That was when Cox replied that she hoped Cox “did not experience transphobic statements from the staff.”

“You should be able to use the showers and changing rooms that you are most comfortable using,” she added.

Clark also agreed with Cox’s suggestion that the staff at the Arlington pool needed “training,” presumably to make them more sympathetic to his demands.

“I agree that training needs to happen,” Clark wrote, adding that she had reached out to the Arlington Gender Identity Alliance and two fellow Virginia Democrats to make them aware of Cox’s complaint.

Days after Cox sent those emails, pool staff discovered Cox’s status on the sex-offender registry, despite weeks of prior reports from parents about his disturbing behavior.

Cox is facing more than 20 charges related to his visits to Arlington Public Schools’s Washington-Liberty High School. Although Cox claimed in emails to have been innocently using the women’s shower, multiple parents have told National Review that Cox simply stood in the locker room, exposed, for long periods of time.

One of those mothers, Jen McDougal, encountered Cox with her 9-year-old daughter after her daughter’s swim practice in September 2024. His “penis, testicles and legs were fully exposed to anyone walking through the entrance,” according to a civil rights complaint filed against Arlington Public Schools by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI).

“Only in Arlington Public Schools — long beholden to transgender madness — could a registered sex offender expose himself in two different high school locker rooms shared by young girls and shortly thereafter correspond with school board members to complain about the putatively insensitive treatment he received,” Vice President and Legal Fellow at Defending Education Sarah Parshall Perry said. “Richard Cox complained to school board member Kathleen Clark he had been treated like a ‘freak’ and offended by pool staff when they asked him how long he planned to loiter in the locker room and instructed other patrons to single-use locker rooms. Inconceivably, after these email exchanges, Cox went on to expose himself six more times before his ultimate arrest.”

“The feckless administrators of Arlington County and APS instituted policies permitting individuals to use school restrooms and locker rooms based on their chosen gender identity — policies that enabled this insanity.”

Frank Bellavia, director of communications at APS, told National Review in a statement that APS has strengthened security standards to gain access into its facilities. Community-use pool access during non-school hours requires an ID check against the sex offender data base before anyone is allowed to enter or use the facility.

“Katheen Clark was responding to the inquiry as a private citizen and candidate for Arlington School Board, not a representative of APS. In the email exchange, Richard Cox was posing as a concerned citizen,” Bellavia said. “As Superintendent Durán stated earlier this year; as soon as APS was aware of the presence of a registered sex offender in one of our aquatics centers, we immediately prohibited the offender from being on APS property and notified the Arlington County Police Department and our County partners. At no time did we knowingly admit a sex offender into our aquatics facilities.”

Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger has repeatedly dodged questions about whether or not she agrees that transgender-identifying individuals should be able to use the facilities of their choice.