Transgender Girl’s Request to Use Bathroom Sparks Controversy

Lila Perry is a transgender high school senior who was granted permission to use the girls’ bathroom at her high school. (Photo: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP)

A transgender student’s request to use the girls’ bathroom prompted a walkout on Monday, resulting in more than 100 teens protesting outside the school during morning class periods.

Lila Perry is a 17-year-old senior at Hillsboro High School, and she started publicly identifying as a girl in February, according to the New York Times. She told the paper that the school had given her permission to use the girls’ restroom at the beginning of this school year, as well as the girls’ locker room for her physical education class. But a number of parents and students said during a school board meeting that they didn’t support the school’s decision.

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During the walkout, which occurred days after the meeting, Lila stayed in the guidance counselor’s office. “I was concerned about my own safety,” she told the Times. She has since dropped the physical education class that prompted her to use the girls’ locker room, and she uses unisex bathrooms.

Yahoo Parenting wasn’t able to reach Lila for comment.

Lila Perry gathers with friends outside Hillsboro High School. (Photo: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP)

While the issue is currently put to rest, it isn’t resolved. Lila will have to take a physical education class this year to graduate, says Morgan Keenan, director of the Missouri Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Network, who has been working with Lila for the past year. “This will be addressed down the line,” Keenan tells Yahoo Parenting. “She’s not going to change in the gender-neutral bathroom because she’s not gender-neutral.”

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Parents and students who have spoken out against Lila’s right to use the girls’ facilities say that it violates the rights of female students. “My goal is for the district and parents to have a policy discussion,” Derrick Good, a father of two girls in the district, told the Times. He has been working with the Alliance Defending Freedom to come up with a “student physical privacy policy” and was inspired to get involved after learning that an “intact male” was using the girls’ locker room. “It’s a violation of my daughters’ rights to privacy to not have a policy,” he said.

Good did not respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment.

In a statement provided to Yahoo Parenting, Hillsboro R-3 School District Superintendent Aaron Cornman said the schools will not discriminate against students based on gender or sexual orientation but that students also have the right to gather in protest. “Hillsboro R-3 School District respects the rights of all students and appreciates the fact that the students we are educating are willing to stand on their belief system and to support their cause/beliefs through their expression of free speech. We understand that students are passionate about their beliefs, and we welcome all involved to share their thoughts in a peaceful and positive manner,” he said. “It is also important to understand that the Hillsboro R-3 School District accepts all students no matter race, nationality/ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. We will promote tolerance and acceptance of all students that attend our district while not tolerating bullying/harassing behaviors of any type in any form. Our mission is to educate all students to be aware of the need for sensitivity of any given situation while respecting the rights of others.”

Cornman also said that while students were permitted to protest for two hours during the school day, they were then encouraged by teachers to return to class. “There does come a point when the school day must continue, and we cannot condone behaviors that detract from the overall mission of the district and behaviors that violate the discipline code of student conduct,” he said.

While the majority of protestors were opposed to Lila’s right to use the girls’ restrooms, a small group of supporters gathered as well. On Friday afternoon, the Missouri GSA Network will hold a larger gathering in Hillsboro to support Lila. “It’s a sad thing that there are so many people who don’t understand the difference between sex and gender,” Keenan says. “It’s unfortunate that there were so many folks who stood outside of the school on Monday, and it shows that there is a lack of education about these things.”

Keenan says the demonstration, which is being called #LiftingUpLila, will address Lila’s need to use the girls’ bathroom, but it will also be about the bigger issue of transphobia in the schools. “Lila’s plight is ‘I’m just a girl, I just want to go to PE, I just want to use the locker room,’” Keenan says. “But our work is also about empowering students to form these clubs, these GSAs, even in places like Hillsboro where it’s not always easy to do, and for them to support each other. There are students oppressed by the gender binary all over, there are trans students everywhere.”

For now, Lila is hoping the chaos will quiet down and that she will be afforded the rights the school allowed her. “I don’t want my entire senior year to be like this,” she told the Times. “It feels really awful that people are going to these extremes against me. … But I’ve also received so much support. It feels really surreal to be in the middle of all of this.”

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