Minneapolis Public Schools passed a new “Gender Inclusion” policy allowing boys who identify as girls to share restrooms, locker rooms, and overnight-trip hotel rooms with females.
The School Board unanimously adopted a policy stating that “gender-expansive” students can use facilities and participate in programs consistent with their “gender identity” at an April 23 meeting reviewed by The Daily Signal.
The Minnesota district stated priorities in determining transgender students’ preferred facilities are maximizing the transgender students’ “social integration” and “comfort,” and “minimizing stigmatization,” rather than protecting the safety of female students in restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities.
The district, comprising 97 schools and more than 36,000 students, will “in no case” require transgender students to use a restroom or locker room that conflicts with the gender they identify with, according to the policy.
“Transgender” is defined as “people whose gender identity or expression is different from that traditionally associated with an assigned sex at birth” in the resolution.
Minneapolis Public Schools will never require a transgender student to use a single-stall restroom, meaning any boy who identifies as a girl can enter the girls’ restroom. The district will work with “transgender and gender-expansive student[s] to determine which restrooms are most comfortable for the student.”
Minneapolis Public Schools did not respond to The Daily Signal’s questions about whether it would take any measures to protect the safety of girls in bathrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated spaces.
This comes after a Virginia judge found a transgender-identifying biological male guilty of sexually assaulting a girl in a girls’ restroom in Loudoun County in 2021.
Girls could have to share a bedroom with a male on overnight school trips under the new policy.
“All students shall be permitted to participate in all school trips in a manner that corresponds with their gender identity,” the policy says. “In planning school trips, staff is expected to assess the student’s needs in collaboration with the student and/or the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) and make reasonable efforts to provide an acceptable accommodation to the student.”
Students can also participate in physical education classes, health classes, and school sports in accordance with their preferred gender identity, though biological males are dominating girls’ high school sports across the country.
Sophomore Aayden Gallagher, who identifies as female, beat seven girls in the 200-meter dash at an Oregon state meet on May 18. Lizzy Cohen Bidwell, a Connecticut resident whose name at birth was Lucas, qualified in mid-March for the national meet by taking first place in the girls’ high jump in a regional competition.
The purpose of the so-called Gender Inclusion policy is to address the “inequities some students, including intersex, transgender, two-spirit, gender expansive, non-binary, and gender-questioning students, confront as they navigate a system designed using a gender binary model,” according to the resolution.
“The students and staff of Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) deserve respectful and inclusive learning environments that value students’ gender identity and gender expression,” the policy reads.
That policy defines “gender expansive” as an “umbrella term that is used to describe individuals whose gender expression, gender identity, or gender role is fluid and/or may differ from gender norms associated with their sex assigned at birth.”
A student “in any grade” who requests to be referred to by a name or gender different from his legal ones has “the right to be referred to at school by a name and pronouns that align with their gender identity” in the district after the policy’s adoption.
Gender is a social construct, according to the district’s policy, while “gender identity” is a person’s “sense or psychological knowledge” of their gender, which can differ from “sex or gender assigned at birth.”
The district’s superintendent, Ed Graff, is responsible for providing training on the “Gender Inclusion” policy and establishing additional regulations. He did not respond to the question of whether he would promulgate a rule to protect girls from the potential dangers associated with males sharing their private spaces.
“It 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,” Minnesota homeschooling mother of three and founder of the Minnesota Parents Alliance Cristine Trooien told The Daily Signal.
The district already compromises student and teacher safety with its “ideologically driven approach to addressing student conduct, discipline, and incident reporting,” she said.
“Unfortunately for the families they serve, [Minneapolis Public Schools are] getting very little right when it comes to policymaking. Their misguided priorities, irresponsible decisions, and unaccountable leadership [have] resulted in dramatic declines in achievement and skyrocketing absenteeism, violence, and disorder in the buildings, as well as a $115 million deficit,” Trooien said.
