Vermont High School Girls Volleyball Team Banned from Locker Room After Objecting to Trans Player’s Presence

The Randolph Union High School girls’ volleyball team in Vermont was reportedly banned from its locker room after some girls on the team objected to the presence of a biological male, who claims to be female, while the girls were changing clothes.

School officials, WCAX 3 News reported, banned the girls from their locker room because Vermont’s policy states transgender athletes can participate on sports teams and use the private facilities consistent with their chosen gender.

“It’s a huge thing,” team member Blake Allen said, according to the report. “Everyone’s asking, ‘So, why aren’t you allowed in the locker room?’”

“My mom wants me to do this interview to try to make a change,” Allen added. “I feel like, for stating my opinion – that I don’t want a biological man changing with me – that I should not have harassment charges or bullying charges. They should all be dropped.”

According to the report, a “dispute” began in the locker room, Allen said, when the transgender student made an inappropriate remark while the girls on the team were changing clothes.

Allen clarified she does not have an issue with having a transgender student on the team or at school, but is particularly concerned about his presence in the locker room.

“There are biological boys that go into the girls’ bathroom but never a locker room,” she said, noting that other team members and their families have raised the same concerns to school officials.

Officials sent an email to families of the female students stating the school has “plenty of space where students who feel uncomfortable with the laws may change in privacy.”

“They want all the girls who feel uncomfortable – so pretty much 10 girls – to get changed in a single-stall bathroom, which would take over 30 minutes,” Allen noted. “Where if one person got changed separately, it would take a minute, like no extra time.”

The school also observed Vermont law allows transgender students to use the locker rooms of the gender of their choice, and that officials are “conducting an investigation into allegations the girls harassed the transgender student,” WCAX 3 News reported.

Randolph Co-Principal Lisa Floyd reportedly said issues of student safety are a top priority and violations of policy would result in disciplinary action consistent with the law.

A report at The Daily Signal Sunday noted the outrage of the parents of the girls.

“We allowed a child who is biologically the opposite sex, male, go in a locker room where biologically girls were getting fully changed,” one of the girls’ mothers said. “The biological child was not changing and sat in the back and watched girls getting changed. That made girls feel uncomfortable, made girls feel violated and not protected.”

“When parents and kids went to the school principals they were told it was a law — nothing they could do about it,” the mother added. “The law gives them room to protect all and they did not.”

A student The Daily Signal identified only as “female student B” said, “I think everyone feels this way about going into a locker room, you shouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

The 14-year-old “joked that since all the girls have the same body parts, they are comfortable changing around one another,” the outlet reported.

“But then when [the trans-identifying student] comes through, it doesn’t feel that way,” the girl explained. “It’s like, a male is in here. Everyone feels so awkward.”

The website of the Orange Southwest School District, to which Randolph Union High School belongs, has been suspended.

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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].

 

 

 

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