WEST JORDAN, Utah — At a school board meeting Tuesday night, parents raised their concerns over bathroom usage for transgender students in the Jordan School District.
The policy centers around which bathroom transgender students are allowed to use.
During a public comment period at a board meeting for the school district, parents and local education leaders had a heated discussion about the topic.
One father, Jesse Sirivanchai, said his transgender daughter, Allison, feels unaccepted at school because of the bathrooms.
"She's just a child the same as everybody else," he said during the meeting. "She's not looking to hurt anybody else's children and if they spent time with her, they would know her humanity and they would just see, yes, you're just a normal natural person too."
Sirivanchai explained his daughter feels more comfortable using the bathroom with other girls at the school, but says the parents of other children cause an issue.
"It has nothing to do with politics," he said. "It has nothing to do with being woke. It has nothing to do with any of this weird stuff. It's just she wants to go to the school and she looks like this and so if she goes into the boys' restroom, she's not accepted there, she goes into the girls' restroom, she's not accepted there."
Natalie Cline and Christina Boggess, both members of the Utah State Board of Education both spoke during the meeting, with Cline saying it's "completely unjust" to allow a child to use a bathroom that correlated with their gender identity.
"This school's non-policy policy forces girls who are not comfortable sharing their bathroom with boys to feel like they are somehow wrong or guilty for feeling this way," Cline said.
"The district and the board and personnel cannot hide behind the federal government's proposed rules," Boggess said. "They must lead and make their own decisions based on objective fact settled law and the voice of the people. My second point would be that decisions shouldn't be based on wars of ideology but in sound objective truths compliant with Utah state law."
FOX 13 News reached out to the Jordan School District, who said that the issue is not a board policy, but that the district follows Title IX.
"Jordan School District follows Title IX federal law banning sex discrimination and harassment related to gender identity in schools," a statement reads in part. "The District works with individual families to provide a safe and welcoming environment for every student. Anyone with concerns on any issue at a school is encouraged to reach out to the school principal."
