By Hunter Hines
Christian Action League
February 13, 2020
A Cleveland County teenager who has undergone surgery and hormone therapy in an attempt to change from a girl to a boy has been granted permission to use the boy’s bathroom at King’s Mountain High after filing a lawsuit against the school system.
Officials at KMHS had been allowing the student to use a faculty restroom, but the family said that was not good enough. According to their lawsuit, the teen suffered ridicule from female schoolmates and got “looks” from faculty members. The suit said the plaintiff often tried to avoid using the restroom altogether, which doctors said could have worsened the student’s stage 4 kidney disease.
“What does this situation show us? It shows us the carnage precipitated by what is nothing more than a radical, left-wing gender theory. Some gender confusion is common during the emotionally challenging days of being an adolescent, but the vast majority of youngsters come through it safely with their actual genders intact,” said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League.
“But instead, trans activism uses the courts to force young boys and girls to have to suffer the indignity and danger of someone of the opposite sex in their bathroom, shower, or locker room. Moreover, it shows the incompetence of parents who embrace transgender foolishness and think that somehow they’re serving their child’s needs.”
In their announcement of the agreement reached on Tuesday, school officials said the move to allow the student to use the boy’s room should not be viewed as setting a precedent, but rather that they handle requests on a case-by-case basis.
After the plaintiff’s family filed suit in January, a judge had issued a temporary restraining order that required the school to let the student use the boy’s room.
According to state law, local boards of education are not compelled to provide open access to “multiple occupancy restrooms, showers, or changing facilities, except in accordance with an act of the General Assembly.” The verbiage is from House Bill 142, which was passed in March 2017 as a compromise measure following the repeal of House Bill 2.
“HB2 — The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act — was the common-sense bathroom bill that required persons to use the bathroom of their biological sex in North Carolina,” Creech explained. “It caused such an uproar, the Republican-dominated legislature repealed the measure and replaced it with HB 142.”
The initial controversy started more than a year earlier when Charlotte passed an ordinance giving LGBT residents preferential treatment under the law and requiring both public and private organizations to allow people claiming to be transgender to use the restroom of their choice. State lawmakers’ attempt to preserve the right of privacy for anyone headed to the restroom and the rights of private business owners to regulate their own businesses was met with outrage from the LGBT community and threats from some companies who declared they would not do business with the Tar Heel state unless HB2 was repealed.
That repeal, House Bill 142, relieved some economic pressure, but left both supporters of HB2 and the LGBT community disappointed. Interestingly, the provision of 142 that prevents local governments such as Charlotte from enacting or amending an ordinance that regulates public accommodations will expire on Dec. 1.