As students in Monroe County enjoy their summer vacation, many in the Waterloo school district are still left grappling with controversy surrounding the district’s new gender identity and bathroom policy introduced at the end of the academic year.

Within the community, transgender students and their supporters are wary of what the new policy’s impact will be entering the 2023-24 school year, while others in the community – particularly a group called Parents Protecting Students – are circulating a petition insisting this new policy isn’t strict enough.

The policy came about following several weeks of discussion that started in March – right before a school board election – when roughly 150 Waterloo High School students participated in a protest to express objection to transgender students using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

That protest took place March 17. The students involved – mainly male students uncomfortable with “girls” using the boys’ bathroom – had previously been told that, were they uncomfortable using the bathroom with trans students, they could use private facilities in the nurse’s office.

That afternoon, correspondence from the district to parents described how the district’s approach to transgender accommodations at the time aligned with the Illinois Human Rights Act as well as Illinois State Board of Education guidance.

Just days later, the Waterloo School Board hosted its monthly regular meeting in the high school auditorium due to an exceptionally large turnout from the community.

Throughout a lengthy public comment portion of the meeting, many spoke against transgender students making use of bathrooms aligning with their gender identity while others voiced support of trans students having access to these facilities.

The March protest led to several gatherings among students and those in the community, including several prayer meetings outside the high school held by protesters and parents and a gathering held by Waterloo Listens in support of transgender students.

At the time, several transgender students spoke with the Republic-Times to express, among other things, how they believed the protest began, noting that a few more transgender boys had been using the boys’ bathrooms through the school year.

These students also explained that, while they hadn’t participated in harassment in the bathrooms, they themselves had been harassed, with other students shaking stalls, calling them slurs or directing inappropriate comments at them.

Various rumors also floated around at the time, particularly one about a trans boy using a funnel to pee at a urinal in the boys’ bathroom, though this was described by trans students as a false rumor started by a younger student.

At the April school board meeting – which received far less attendance than March’s meeting – one item on the agenda was introducing a new bathroom and gender identity-related policy.

The policy was shared with parents via email following the meeting.

The focus of the policy outlines how transgender students will now be required to establish a Gender Identity Plan in order to access accommodations.

The plans, as described by the policy, would involve students working with their parents, a school social worker and administrator in order to discuss student privacy, the student’s name and pronouns, use of restroom facilities and various other aspects of school conduct.

A key detail of the policy is that students are required to use bathrooms associated with their biological sex unless they first work to set up a Gender Identity Plan.

The end of the policy also mentioned specific safety rules for restrooms, including how sexual activity and harassment of students are prohibited and students are expected to respect the privacy of others in the bathroom.

Following policy introduction and initial voting in April, it was ultimately passed at the May school board meeting.

The board voted 4-3 to approve the policy, with board vice president Neil Giffhorn, Jodi Burton, John Caupert and James Yaekel voting in favor and Amanda Propst, board secretary Kim Ahne and board president Lori Dillenberger voting against.

Also included in the email which linked to a Google Doc containing the new policy was a link which led to a Google Survey to allow residents of the school district to express thoughts on the policy.

It was expressed by Waterloo Superintendent of Schools Brian Charron that, in the month between meetings, only 57 responses to this survey were received. He noted the small scale of that number compared to the district’s population of roughly 2,000 students.

Responses were rather mixed in terms of length and content. Some wrote to express support of the policy while most spoke against, suggesting it was either too strict or not strict enough.

Several responses expressed dissatisfaction with the policy as, though it regulates access to accommodations, it still allows transgender students to access bathrooms aligned with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

One such responder wrote, “No matter what policy is created or updates done to restrooms, I will not support biological males entering the same restroom as biological females and vice versa no matter what a gender identity plan says.”

Other similar responses were especially negative, dismissive or harsh toward trans students.

One response insisted students use bathrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth, “No matter how they dress, what costume they are wearing or how they have mutilated their body,” going on to say transgender students should be taught “their correct pronouns.”

Other responses said transgender students are “confused” or “attention seeking.” One particular comment insisted the policy allows transgender students to “take control of the school.”

While many responses were disparaging of trans students, others were more supportive.

Several responses said the policy seemed to be singling out transgender students, with at least one of them suggesting that such rules wouldn’t be made about any other minority group nowadays.

Other comments expanded on this idea, saying the policy could be considered discriminatory toward trans students.

Regarding the policy and the community’s response, Charron described the fundamentally controversial nature of this issue, adding the conversation is far bigger than just the Waterloo school district.

“Do I expect this to satiate everybody? No,” Charron said. “This is a controversial issue that is not just a metro-east or statewide, but it’s a nationwide issue right now. And I don’t expect Waterloo school district to develop a policy that is gonna resolve this debate nationwide. I don’t expect us to develop a policy that will solve this debate locally.”

Charron went on to say he believes the policy is consistent with Illinois law and guidelines while also allowing parents to be involved in the decisions of their minor children when it comes to gender identity.

Several transgender individuals spoke with the Republic-Times on the matter.

One was Court Fallon, a graduate of Waterloo High School who now lives out of state and identifies as nonbinary.

Fallon described how, within the policy and ongoing discussion in the district, “It just seems to be a political conversation with actual trans teenagers being the collateral.”

Fallon also spoke to the impact the Gender Identity Plan system could have on trans students, describing it as “red tape” to prevent them from using the bathrooms.

Fallon further described their own experience trying to understand their gender identity through high school, acknowledging they would have been terrified to have to discuss the subject with their parents.

Fallon also described how generally difficult it can be for young people to explore gender identity.

“When you’re that age, the last thing that you want to do is stand out for any reason, because that’s just a way to put a target on your back, especially in a community that’s backing a lot of this rhetoric,” Fallon said.

Fallon ultimately described the policy as a “band-aid solution” that most people will simply not be satisfied with.

Leo Ramseur, a trans student from WHS, similarly described his experience in working through his identity, a process which involved plenty of experimentation.

“It was very necessary for me to have a space that I felt comfortable to do that,” Ramseur said. “And what this plan does is eliminate that space. It eliminates that safe feeling of being able to experiment and know that, even when you’re not feeling OK with yourself and you’re not accepting yourself, you have a safe space.”

Along those lines, Ramseur said the required involvement of parents could be very dangerous and damaging for trans students depending on how supportive their parents may or may not be.

He also spoke about the inclusion of the bathroom rules at the end of the new policy, saying it implies trans students were the ones doing the harassing or otherwise breaking the rules in the bathroom.

Ramseur responded to claims in some of the survey responses that trans students’ gender identities were a distraction from other students’ education.

He noted how the March protest and harassment he and his friends have experienced are distractions.

“Me having a different gender identity than what was assigned to me at birth is not a distraction to your kid’s education, at all,” Ramseur said. “It does not cause your kid to stay up at night and not be able to do their homework. It does not. Your kid harassing me and bullying me and my friends does. It keeps me up at night. It destroyed my mental health at the end of sophomore year.”

Another transgender student, who requested to be identified simply as Theo, also offered thoughts on the policy.

He specifically responded to some of the harsher comments shared on the survey, noting how it was parents demonstrating such “rudeness and closed-mindedness.”

“It’s pretty ugly how people would describe us as mentally ill, confused,” Theo said. “And how they’re thinking that we’re getting more privilege or taking control of the school.”

Theo also offered further perspective on some of the harassment he and his friends have faced.

“A lot of students there don’t really see trans people as people sometimes, and they have had a lot of things where they would bully us or just say really rude comments, specifically like the ‘F’ slur,” Theo said.

Like Ramseur, he also expressed the entire situation seems to be largely overblown.

“I feel like this should not be a huge thing, but it is,” Theo said.