The Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) in California hosted a board meeting Thursday amid controversy over a transgender cross country runner at Martin Luther King High School and rebuke of students for protesting the participation of the athlete.
The board meeting will address recent allegations in a lawsuit that school administrators compared “Save Girls’ Sports” T-shirts to swastikas.
Protesters gathered in front of the RUSD district office, advocating for and against transgender inclusion.
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Video footage of the meeting provided by parents to California Family Outreach Director Sophia Lorey showed a crowd of people raising the transgender pride flag and wearing similarly colored T-shirts.
Lorey told Pak Gazette Digital that there were some people outside the venue wearing “Save Girls’ Sports” t-shirts, but that they were outnumbered by pro-transgender activists.
The California Family Council, along with religious rights law firm Advocates for Faith and Freedom, held a press conference outside the district office ahead of the board meeting addressing the ongoing controversy.
Ryan Starks, the father of a girl at the school named Taylor who is involved in a lawsuit against the school, spoke at the news conference. The lawsuit alleges that Taylor lost her spot on the varsity team to a transgender athlete and that her T-shirt to express opposition to the competing athlete was compared to a swastika.
“It’s heartbreaking to see what my daughter has been through this season,” Starks said.
THE FATHER OF A RUNNER FORCED TO COMPETE WITH A TRANS ATHLETE SHARES THE FURY OF THE SITUATION: ‘I CAN’T EVEN DIGEST IT’
“This is unfair. This is completely unfair. It breaks my heart as a father to see my daughter go through this and have it taken away from her, to come up to me and just hug me. And I can’t do anything about it. So, It’s just heartbreaking.”
An attorney representing Taylor in the lawsuit, Julianne Fleischer, previously told Pak Gazette Digital that the rhetoric from school administrators is “incredibly dangerous.”
“When you have adults comparing the ‘Save Girls’ Sports’ message that promotes equality, justice and common sense, when you have adults comparing that message to a swastika, which represents the genocide of millions of Jews, it’s not really there are words, I don’t know how you respond to that,” Fleischer said.
Hundreds of students at Martin Luther King High School began wearing the shirts every Wednesday. The school responded by enacting a dress code that resulted in many of those students being sent to detention. But that didn’t stop them. Students continued to wear the t-shirts weekly.
The school recently stopped enforcing its dress code for t-shirts.
Sources have told Pak Gazette that officials at nearby Arlington High School, Riverside Polytechnical High School and Romona High School have also seen students wearing them.
In a statement previously provided to Pak Gazette Digital, RUSD said it allowed the transgender athlete to compete on the team because it must comply with California state law.
Students at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, wear t-shirts that say “Save Girls’ Sports” to protest a transgender athlete on the cross country team. (Courtesy of Sofía Lorey)
“It is important to remember that RUSD is required to follow California law, which requires that students be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including sports teams and competitions consistent with their gender identity, regardless of gender. that appear in the student’s records,'” the statement says.
“As these matters play out in our courts and the media, opposition and protests must be directed to those in a position to affect those laws and policies, including officials in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.”
California has had laws in place to protect transgender athletes in women’s sports since 2014. That year, AB 1266 went into effectgranting California students at the school and college level the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and to use facilities consistent with their gender identity, regardless of the gender listed on school records.” student”. “
