Kenosha---The wristband story stands.
One of the attorneys who represents a transgender Tremper High School student in his lawsuit against the school district is reaffirming an assertion that the school had planned to monitor the bathroom usage of transgender students by having them wear green wristbands starting this fall.
Attorney Joe Wardenski was responding to a Kenosha Unified claim that it doesn't have such a requirement.
The suit claims that the plaintiff--Ashton Whitaker--was showed a bright, green wristband by his counselor last May. The counselor purportedly explained that transgender students would be required to wear them next fall to make sure that they used bathrooms that correspond to the gender ID on their birth certificate. The suit says Whitaker immediately felt sickened and afraid. "If he did wear the wristband, he knew that other students would likely ask him repeatedly why he was wearing it, and he would have to explain over and over that he is transgender," the suit says. "He expected that some students would stare, and others would outright ridicule him."
The lawsuit--filed in federal court in Milwaukee--demands that transgender students be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.
KUSD has three weeks to formally respond to the suit.
In the coming days, the school board is expected to consider a policy that would require transgender students to first discuss bathroom and locker room usage with a counselor. The policy doesn't specifically prohibit transgender students from using the bathroom of their choice, but it doesn't allow it, either.
Wardenski calls the proposed policy discriminatory and contradictory to federal guidance on such matters.
Wardenski said he suspects there's a good chance that the issue of transgender bathroom use won't be settled until its taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. Cases similar to Whitaker's are already in the pipeline.
Ironically, Whitaker, who's transitioning from female to male, used boys' bathrooms for much of the last school year, purportedly without complaint. But the fur began to fly in late February when administration got wind of what was happening.
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