A Texas school district adopted a policy on Monday that established new pronoun and bathroom guidelines.
The Katy ISD Board of Trustees voted in favor of requiring staff to refrain from using students’ preferred pronouns if they do not correspond to their biological sex and to inform parents if their children want to be identified as transgender, Fox 26 Houston reported.
Additionally, students will be required to use the locker rooms and bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex, and staff cannot teach “Gender Fluidity content,” per the new policy.
The vote followed more than five hours of public testimony. Several parents praised the measures as a common sense approach to education, while some LGBTQ activists described them as “discriminatory” and called trustees in favor of the policy “Christian Nationalists,” the Texas Scorecard reported.
“It’s always a good thing to remain grounded in reality, and I’m grateful that you have firmly slammed the door on this creeping ideology that has no place in our schools,” said Claudia Turcott. “It is never loving to affirm someone in delusional thinking. These topics have no place in our schools.”
Jarred Burton, the vice president of Tompkins High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance Club, spoke out against the new rules.
“This policy hides behind the facade of protecting the students, but all it will do is harm them,” said Burton, according to the Texas Scorecard. “Instead of focusing on more pressing issues, the board instead chooses to imbue discriminatory beliefs into the school system, and turn schools into a place where many students cannot feel safe.”
The trustees approved the policy in a 4-3 vote. Trustees Morgan Calhoun, Mary Ellen Cuzela, Amy Thieme, and Board President Victor Perez voted in favor. Trustees Lance Redmon, Dawn Champagne, and Rebecca Fox voted against the policy.
Calhoun countered in debates during the meeting that the policy balances the priorities of students and their parents.
“We are putting our daughters and our kids first, and our parents first,” Calhoun said, per the Texas Scorecard. “Our parents are going to sit in the front seat of this.”
Bethany Spare, a mother of three students who go to school in Katy ISD, said the policy establishes needed parental rights.
“Under the law, parents have rights for when and how to discuss these issues with their children,” Spare said, according to the Texas Scorecard. “The material that is kept out of the classroom by this policy shouldn’t be there to begin with.”
Despite the contention over the new policy, Katy ISD is one of the state’s better-performing school systems. Roughly 68% of students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams during the 2021-2022 school year, and the district boasts an on-time graduation rate of 95%.
For comparison, only 41% of students at Dallas ISD scored at grade level on their STAAR exams that school year and almost 20% of the district’s graduating Class of 2022 did not earn a diploma in four years.
