Missouri Students Protest for Transgender Student’s Right to Use Girl’s Locker Room, Bathroom

Students at a Missouri high school staged a walk out in support of a boy who has insisted that as a transgender student he should be allowed to use the girl’s locker room and bathrooms.

Upwards top 200 students of Hillsboro High School in Hillsboro, MO, a town about 40 miles south of St. Louis, staged their protest after 3rd period on Monday. The walk out lasted for about two hours, school authorities report.

Students wanted administrators to allow transgender student “Lila Perry” to use the girl’s locker room despite that he was born a male.

This isn’t a sudden situation in the high school. Since coming out last February, the transgender student has been making demands that have made other parents uncomfortable. In fact, just last week, a school board meeting turned into a debate about Perry’s rights even though the discussion was not supposed to be on the agenda.

So many parents showed up to discuss the matter that the meeting had to be shifted to the school gymnasium.

The worries of parent Derrick Good was typical of those who were uneasy over a boy using the girl’s locker room.

“[Girls] should have the ability to do whatever they need to do in the privacy of the bathroom without having a male in there,” Good said last week. “They have a right to their own bodily privacy, and I’ve raised my girls, and many of these parents have raised their girls, to protect that privacy. They don’t share that with members of the opposite sex.”

A group of parents demanded that the school make a new policy of directing transgender kids to either use the bathroom that fits their birth gender or use a gender neutral bathroom. Student Lila Perry, though, is refusing to use a gender neutral room and insists that he be allowed to use the girl’s facilities because he identifies as a girl.

Not all the students who walked out of class to attend the protest were siding with the self-professed transgender student. Some students thought that the student should use a “gender neutral” locker room and stay out of the girl’s locker room.

The school board has not made a decision one way or the other, and the board’s members are staying mum, saying they can’t comment on the matter.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.