A Frisco Independent School District school board meeting got a little rowdy on September 12 as trustees and members of the public discussed whether students should only use bathrooms designated for their birth sex.
It is unclear why the discussion was placed on the board’s agenda, but there was no specific policy proposal on the docket or vote taken on the matter. The agenda item simply read, “Discussion regarding Title IX and student bathroom use.”
Some Frisco ISD parents and trustees voiced their desire to prevent students from using the bathroom of their choice.
While the district does not have an explicit policy governing the matter, its practice since 2015 has been to allow individual schools and parents to negotiate which specific bathrooms the student would use on a case-by-case basis.
“Why are we changing all of our rules for less than 1% when we know that more than 1% are going to be uncomfortable with the situation?” asked Trustee Marvin Lowe, arguing against the district allowing students to choose which bathroom they want to use.
Lucas Henry of the Abernathy Law group explained the district’s current approach to the situation at the board meeting, stating, “If a student wishes to use a different restroom … they need to go to their parents and their parents need to come to campus administration. And then campus administration works with a parent and the student to identify a solution.”
Henry said, “there’s typically a mutually agreeable resolution whereby the student uses a private single-use restroom.”
At least one parent, however, was not satisfied with the district’s case-by-case approach.
“I fully support the rights of transgender kids to be accommodated for their needs, but it freaks me out to know if they are going to use the same bathroom as my girl that goes to Frisco ISD. It is just not acceptable to me.,” said Azfar Saeed, a parent of a high-school-aged girl.
“If you are providing accommodation to them, be very transparent about it, that they would get a single-use, single-stall bathroom and will never enter my girl’s bathroom ever in any school. And it makes me extremely uncomfortable to know that we are not getting a clear answer on that,” he continued. “You said nine times out of 10 it happens. So maybe there is that 10% chance that a boy might end up in my girl’s bathroom. And that’s not acceptable to me.”
At one point, Trustee Dynette Davis compared the controversy to past Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation:
“I’m disappointed that in 2022 we’re having the same type of conversation concerning discrimination. About 68 years ago … trustees, ISD members, those that are sitting here on this dais with me … could not use the same bathroom.”
She went on to claim that there were roughly 360 bathroom incidents recorded in the district and that none of them had anything to do with a transgender student.
The district’s chief student services officer, Erin Miller, spoke at the meeting and asserted to the board and the public that fewer than 50 students in the past year have requested to use a different bathroom based on their gender identity. Frisco ISD has roughly 40,000 students.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD recently adopted a policy that requires students to only use the bathroom corresponding to their birth sex. The district’s school board also voted in favor of policies restricting how gender is discussed and engaged with on school campuses.