CV NEWS FEED // The Minneapolis Public School Board has passed a new “gender inclusion” policy that mandates protections for students who identify as “transgender.”
The Board passed the resolution on June 11, enshrining “students’ right to be addressed by the name and pronoun they prefer while ensuring parental access to data records,” according to local reports.
The new policy allows “trans-identifying” students to use bathrooms and other designated spaces that correspond to their professed “gender identity.” Students can share hotel rooms on school trips with students who are not of the same sex.
The resolution document states that the purpose of the policy is to “[ensure] that all students have access to programming and facilities in which they feel comfortable, supported, and safe.”
The document adds that the policy specifically seeks to address “inequities” that “intersex, transgender, two-spirit, gender expansive, non-binary, and gender questioning students” experience.
In her reaction to the Board’s decision, Minnesota Parents Alliance Cristine Trooien told the Daily Signal that “[i]t is disappointing, but not surprising, to see the Minneapolis School Board’s activism and willingness to put the rights and safety of some students over others in order to advance a very narrow social agenda.”
Devin Foley, the executive director of school choice advocacy group Opportunities For All Kids, denounced the Board’s decision in an interview with local news outlet, KARE 11.
“Does that mean that a boy can be in my girl’s bathroom?” Foley asked, continuing, “By the policy, yes.”
“An enormous amount of energy is spent on a gender inclusion policy, when less than half of the kids are proficient in reading,” he added.