WATERTOWN, Wisconsin (LifeSiteNews) — The Watertown Unified School Board in Wisconsin voted 8-1 on Monday to adopt a new “gender support plan” that restricts lockers, restrooms, and athletic programs to actual members of the designated sex.
Fox 6 Milwaukee reports that the vote, which came down in a crowded board meeting in which both sides turned out to voice their opinions in an hour-long public comment period, reversed the original situation, in which gender-confused students were allowed to use whatever facilities or join whatever teams they wanted.
The vote also gives school faculty and staff discretion in whether to use transgender names and pronouns. The new rules took effect immediately.
BREAKING: @WatertownUSD school board in WI just voted to ban males from using girls’ restrooms or participating in girls’s sports pic.twitter.com/deOBR7FFT3
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 20, 2024
“I was relieved that I feel like girls’ sports won’t be taken away from them, their bathrooms will be safe, they won’t have to worry about men who should not be there,” said local parent Tammy Fournier after the vote, WISN reports.
According to the plan, “Student and or parent requests for an accommodation to [the restroom and locker] guideline shall be considered by a team of district staff on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the support team.”
As for how that will work, Watertown Unified School District Superintendent Jarred Burke said that students would “have to have a meeting with our Transgender Support Team” regarding a potential “support plan that addresses just pronoun usage, or if it addresses restroom usage or sports or whatever.”
Critics warn that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.
Allowing gender-confused individuals to compete in opposite-sex sports, meanwhile, is promoted by leftists as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities.
There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be negated by hormone suppression.