During the first McKinney ISD school board meeting of the 2024-2025 school year, the board shot down a motion by Trustee Chad Green to pass a resolution opposing the Biden administration’s embattled pro-trans Title IX guidance.

The resolution had previously been presented to the board in June by a representative of Citizens Defending Freedom(CDF).

“Without a second [motion], we’ll go ahead and let it die,” the board president, Philip Hassler, said on Monday.

Under McKinney ISD board procedures, any motion to consider a resolution must be seconded by another board member before a final vote can be held. Hassler, Board Vice President Amy Dankel, Board Secretary Harvey Oaxaca, and Trustees Larry Jagours, Stephanie O’Dell, and Lynn Sperry chose not to support Green’s motion to pass the resolution.

Lee Moore spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, reminding board members that she had previously presented CDF’s resolution to them at the end of the last school year and had asked them to “[join] any existing Texas lawsuits aimed at protecting women and girls, as intended by Congress when they passed Title IX back in 1972.”

Then she sharpened her point, stating, “Just so the audience and those online know, this unlawful action by [President Joe] Biden would deny women and girls in this district the Title IX legal protections Congress intended to give them, and MISD would be in violation of Title IX if they did not let males into female restrooms, let males shower and undress in female lockerrooms, let males box and wrestle females in P.E. class, let males share a room with females on overnight trips, punish students and teachers who refuse to use someone’s preferred pronouns, and punish students and teachers who express ‘offensive’ views that might go against their religious beliefs.”

The origins of this issue go back at least as far as December 2022, when a man named Johnathan Steele addressed the school board. He had thanked McKinney ISD for “their acceptance and support of my transgender son,” noting that school officials allowed his child to self-administer testosterone injections while on a school trip.

“McKinney ISD has boldly attempted to navigate what it means to be in support of a transgender student in a state rife with hatred and bigotry,” he added.

In his address, which occurred just before Christmas, he said he wanted to “dial back the temperature a bit on this debate as we head into the solstice and Yule season.” He closed with words in a foreign language, which he claimed brought blessings from “the sacred Yule goat.”

Steele had said that members of the community had previously called him a “groomer and a Devil worshipper.”

When The Dallas Express asked Green why he thought fellow board members opposed his resolution, he first shared the video of Steele’s remarks.

“This is the man the board partnered with to bring in the LGTBQIA club into Boyd [High School] to focus on genital binding. They knew he was a Satanist but still partnered with him,” Green said. “Oaxaca, Odell, Hassler all go to first Mckinney Baptist and were in leadership there. The pastor wouldn’t even meet with community members about the porn in our libraries by saying he gets all his information from Odell about the district.”

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Green followed up by speaking specifically to Title IX.

“I made a motion to protect our young ladies in McKinney ISD to be free to pursue the sport of their choice without having to worry about changing in front of a boy in their locker room, being intruded upon by a boy in a women’s restroom, or competing with a boy in a sport,” he said.

“I have a daughter. She is the most precious thing to me. I can’t imagine her telling me that she was forced to change in front of a male, which happened to Riley Gaines,” he said, referring to the famous college swimmer and activist.

“Unfortunately, similar situations of a female rooming with males at a district trip have happened with the full knowledge and approval of the McKinney ISD School Board as was revealed by the testimony of a parent in a recorded school board meeting. I made this motion in an attempt to protect all our daughters,” he said.

“It is unfortunate that no one else seconded the motion. All of our daughters are precious gifts from our Creator, and we are given a duty to protect them as fathers. We also need to be teaching our sons to protect our young ladies as well,” Green concluded.

The Dallas Express contacted each member of the McKinney ISD Board of Trustees to find out why they did not support the resolution.

Dankel and Hassler responded with copies of the same statement:

“The motion did not receive a second because UIL guidelines and state law already protect McKinney ISD female students. To take further action would have violated the law. Passing a frivolous and meaningless motion was unnecessary because protections are already in place in our district.”

“We value and respect our community’s input, and we understand that these comments may have caused some concern among our parents and guardians. We would like to take this opportunity to address the issue raised and clarify our position and the legal framework surrounding this issue,” the statement noted before categorically stating later on that, “The Concern Raised regarding Gender is False.”

When Kyle Sims posted the video of Moore and another of Green to Facebook and Twitter, there was a public outcry. Both videos were viewed by a collective audience of more than 110,000 viewers in less than seven hours.

Don Huffines, a former state senator, responded to Sim’s post: “Last night, McKinney ISD failed to protect female locker rooms and sports. We are losing the culture war because many leaders lack the courage to fight.”

The battle over Title IX regulations in schools has raged in recent months as the Biden administration has sought to reinterpret Title IX to apply to students who identify as a gender that does not match their biological sex. The administration contends that denying a transgender swimmer equal access to facilities because of their transgender identity is unlawful discrimination based on the person’s gender.

This reasoning echoes the majority Supreme Court opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). “Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex, an employer who intentionally penalizes an employee for being homosexual or transgender also violates Title VII,” the court majority wrote.

However, the high court was far from unanimous in this decision. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

Alito and Thomas wrote together in the dissenting opinion:

“There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive … A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.”

School boards across Texas have passed resolutions opposing the Biden administration’s Title IX changes.

Grapevine-Colleyville ISD passed a resolution in May rejecting the changes. The resolution’s language called the federal policy a potential threat to the “safety and well-being of GCISD students.” It also urged the president to “reconsider” the changes and “engage in meaningful dialogue with stakeholders,” DX reported.

Just before this, Gov. Greg Abbott posted a letter to Twitter and ordered Texas secondary educational institutions, which the Title IX revisions also apply to, not to comply. Abbott wrote that Texas would resist the changes, stating that they “contradict the original purpose and spirit of the law to support the advancement of women.”

“Last week, I instructed the Texas Education Agency to ignore President Biden’s illegal dictate of Title IX. Today, I am instructing every public college and university in the State of Texas to do the same,” Abbott said.

He claimed that the changes exceeded Biden’s “authority as President in order to impose a leftist belief on the next generation.”

“Texas will stand up not only to President Biden’s rewrite of Title IX but also his plans to destroy the legacy of women’s collegiate sports. Texas will fight to protect those laws, to protect Texas women, and to deny the President’s abuse of authority,” he said.

Likewise, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to reverse the changes. The lawsuit is still winding its way through the federal court system.

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