Mitchell: Nevada law assures eventual flap over school gender identity

A boy who pretends to be a girl. (Source: Associated Press)

(Thomas Mitchell) – Coming to a school near you?

Definitely.

On Monday, students at Hillsboro High School in Missouri staged a walkout over a 17-year-old boy who pretends to be a girl insisting on being able to use the girls’ locker room instead of a gender-neutral faculty facility.

The district has no policy to cover such things, so a lawyer who has two daughters at the school is working with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian advocacy group, to draft a “student physical privacy policy.”

This past legislative session Nevada lawmakers passed a sweeping anti-bullying law that specifically protects people who might be discriminated against because of: “Actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability of a person, sex or any other distinguishing characteristic or background of a person …”

It high-mindedly dictates: “Every classroom, hallway, locker room, cafeteria, restroom, gymnasium, playground, athletic field, school bus, parking lot and other areas on the premises of a public school in this State must be maintained as a safe and respectful learning environment, and no form of bullying or cyber-bullying will be tolerated within the system of public education in this State …”

Among the prohibitions in the law is: “Blocking access to any property or facility of a school …”

There you have it. By Nevada law, you can’t bar boys from the girls’ showers.

A bill that would have required public schools to provide gender-neutral facilities for boys who think they are girls and girls who think they are boys was scoffed at and went nowhere.

Mr. Mitchell publishes the 4TH ST8 Blog at www.4thst8.wordpress.com.

The column was originally published on Mr. Mitchell’s blog.