Graphic by Jasmine Grant
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough school board approved a policy that would prohibit transgender and gender-nonconforming students in the district the right to use the restroom in alignment with their gender identity. This decision is unlikely to hold up in a court of law or provide any sustainable solution for the transgender community of the school district.
“The studies show that transgender youth are actually at higher risk of being sexually assaulted, being the victims of violence, substance abuse, suicide risk, and other sexual risk behaviors than cisgender youth,” said transgender parent, Vincent Boyer, at the Oct. 19 board meeting.
The board was asked for action by a parent of a cisgender girl who allegedly saw and was made uncomfortable by a transgender girl in a school changing room. Public comments made in support of this policy were similar to others of across the country, citing the fear of assault against cisgender girls. However, research suggests that bathroom bans like Mat-Su may put more students at risk than it protects.
A study published in the Journal Pediatrics found restroom and locker room restrictions put transgender girls and boys at a 2.49 and 1.26 times higher risk of sexual assault, respectively. Rates of sexual assault amongst gender-minoriy individuals is already higher than those who identify with their given gender.
The Mat-Su policy, referred to on their website as 5134 BP, states that each building in the district “shall provide reasonable accommodation to any individual who does not wish to” use the restroom of their biological sex. Reasonable accommodations are defined as “access to a single-occupancy restroom or changing room (such as a nurse’s office or family restroom).” According to the policy, any violations of these parameters “will result in disciplinary action consistent with Board Policy and Administrative Regulations.”
Testimony from transgender individuals suggests that most students will opt for the single-use restroom rather than use the restroom matching their biological sex. Still, there are downsides and heavy risks associated with using a private stall in public schools.
A UCLA study published in Journal of Public Management & Social Policy in 2013 quantified survey responses from 93 transgender and gender-noncomforing residents in the DC area. About half of the respondents reported physical-related health issues of dehydration, UTIS and kidney-related problems due to holding their bladder to avoid risk of assault in public restrooms.
Besides the ramifications facility-restricitions force transgender individuals to face, they have also been declared unlawful by a United States circuit court.
In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a transgender student from Virginia who wanted to use the restroom of his gender identity. Gavin Grimm vs. Gloucester County School Board was first filed by the ACLU as a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015.
Before an injunction allowing Gavin to use the correct bathrooms during the court battle, he was forced to use the bathroom in his school's nurses office for the first part of his school year. In a school board meeting Gavin said, “This was alienating, it was humiliating.” He also said travel time to this separate bathroom took time away from his education.
The Mat-Su district policy defines facilities as only available for “a. For the exclusive use of the male sex; or b. For the exclusive use of the female sex” in which “‘Sex’ means the physical condition of being male or female based on genetics and physiology, as designated at the individual’s birth.”
However, the Fourth Circuit had ruled in Grimm’s case that in application of bathroom policies to students the school board could not “rely on its own discriminatory notions of what ‘sex’ means” in reference to clause 106.33 of Title IX, according to a 2022 report by the Congressional Research Service.
The courts clarification of this clause would mean there is no legal justification for Mat-Su’s new policy. All school board members except Dwight Probasco voted in favor of the policy in the Oct. 19 meeting wherein Probasco said he believes “this policy is built on sand.”
Parents accused the school board of perpetrating harmful stereotypes about transgender individuals, such as predatory behavior. Laurel Carlson, mother of two in the Mat-Su district, said these bans “exploit the natural desires of parents to keep their kids safe.”
“You claim this ban was an emergency response to a transgender girl using the girls locker room but you also report drawing inspiration from a lawsuit from twenty other states, including Alaska, to block the Biden administrations interpretation of Title IX,” she said.
In the Sep. 21 meeting, Jessica Young said she would appeal to the board's economic sense rather than emotional. “Kids will go to college and will never come back to the Mat-Su because they will understand that they are accepted in other places,” she said.
Gender-minority college students are at a 4.3 times higher risk of experiencing a mental health issue according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The Trevor Project found transgender non-binary youth who felt accepted by school faculty to be at 33% lower odds of attemping suicide.
The rate of suicide in Alaska is one of the highest in the U.S. where suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst adolescents. Mat-Sus extension of the discrimination faced by queer youth in Alaska could put them at higher risk for suicide.
Generation Z has largely created a culture of acceptance amongst themselves. The reality of otherness by older generations can be a hard one to face.
UAA resources for LGBTQ+ support states that “Students, staff, faculty, and campus guests are welcome to use the restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to their sex or gender identity.” In October, USUAA urged the administration to “install gender neutral bathrooms on campus” in resolution number 23.03.
The university’s LGBTQ2+ group holds weekly meetings on Tuesdays from 7 - 8 p.m. in the Multicultural Student Services center in Rasmuson Hall. Queer people are encouraged to come by and socialize.
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