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HS Student Files Civil Rights Complaint After Being 'Violated' by Transgender

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Well, talk about flipping the script.

A female student at a Honesdale, Pennsylvania, high school says that she was the subject of sexual harassment in the women’s locker room after she alleges she was “violated” by a transgender student.

Now, according to WNEP-TV, she has filed a federal complaint against Honesdale High School.

In a video posted to YouTube by her lawyers, the student — whose name wasn’t disclosed — describes what she says happened in a locker room during the second week of school.



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“It was first period and I had gym class,” the girl said in the video.

“And I walked in with all my friends, and while I was putting on my pants I heard a man’s voice, so I turned around, and he’s standing there on the opposite aisle looking at me.

“I glanced down and I could tell that he was wearing women’s underwear and what was underneath it,” she continued. “When I knew that a man was looking at me, I felt very violated and very scared — especially looking at me while I’m getting dressed.”

Attorney Andrea Shaw, meanwhile, noted that “opening up restrooms and locker rooms to members of the opposite sex is sexual harassment.

Do transgender students have a right to use the restroom of their choice?

“Like most forms of sexual harassment, the girls in this school have little power over their situation,” she said.

“The school’s only solution for my client was for her to wait outside the locker room until the individual of the opposite sex was finished changing, and then she went in and was late for gym class and also late for her second period class.”

“The school’s offered solution made it clear that they believed that my client was the problem,” Shaw added.

The student has filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division. The school hasn’t commented on the case except to say their policy is in line with a 2018 court ruling — a ruling that will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court and will decide whether transgender students have the constitutional right to use the facilities of their choosing.

In that case, according to The New York Times, Gavin Grimm won the right to use the boys’ bathroom in his school after a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia decided that a bathroom policy based on a student’s biological gender “subjected him to sex stereotyping.”

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“There were many other ways to protect privacy interests in a nondiscriminatory and more effective manner than barring Mr. Grimm from using the boys’ restrooms,” Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen wrote in her ruling. “The board’s argument that the policy did not discriminate against any one class of students is resoundingly unpersuasive.”

We don’t know whether this young lady’s allegations are true or not, but predators who would use the gender identity card to sexually accost others in a vulnerable setting has always been the problem with policies which allow individuals to choose their facilities based on what they believe their gender identity is.

While the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive, most individuals with gender dysphoria who choose to identify as something other than their biological sex aren’t exactly the issue here — although the cultural inviolability of anyone who claims to have a gender identity different than their biological sex is part of the reason the real issue doesn’t get raised. The issue is those who would treat the situation as a loophole for their own sick ends.

But the cultural inviolability seems to have permeated even cases like this. “While there’s been plenty of reaction to the complaint on social media, few people we approached would speak on camera about the situation but told us off camera that they support the girl and her family,” WNEP reported.

In other words, the taboo against speaking out on transgender bathroom policies is so great that parents can’t offer support to a teen who says she was sexually harassed.

In a culture where “believe all victims” has become a mantra, it seems there are some victims who can’t be believed publicly.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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