Volleyball team, Vermont

According to the mother, her [male teenager] was changing in the [girls'] locker room before volleyball practice when three [female] teammates began to yell at [him] to get out and stop looking at them... My initial reaction was outrage but I'm willing to concede maybe the trans kid was being bullied.

So a group of girls yelling at a teenage boy to stop looking at them getting changed are just bullying him for no reason? Why would anyone assume that, instead of assuming that they yelled at him to stop looking at him, because he was looking at them? Even the mother's own account makes her child sound like a creep. And the account of the girls is that he didn't leave when asked to. I'm personally inclined to believe the teenagers who are demonstrating incredible courage and character by speaking up in their real names, over the teenager who was keen to hang out in the opposite-sex locker room.

But it's true that whatever the facts of the matter, the policy is the problem, not the individual teenager, who should never been allowed in there in the first place.

Third spaces are the compromise solution.

I can’t really see any other approaches that keep all pupils (girls, boys, pupils of either sex who identify as the opposite or as non binary) physically safe, respect the accepted standards of same-sex privacy & dignity while undressing, and minimise both the opportunities for social misunderstanding and opportunities for bullying a trans student.

Not that I believe these girls WERE bullying the trans student, but I bet 10 plus teenage girls all loudly telling you to go away in unison FEELS like bullying, especially if you’ve been told by your parents, your head teacher and the T lobby that the girls have no right to object to your presence.

Adult activist demands for ‘acceptance without exception’ are causing the situations that harm the very children they claim to be protecting.

Yes, very well put.

I don't think biological males should be in female spaces but this situation has upset everyone and helped no one. Society needs to find a way to get the greatest good out of the situation but I don't think there's an easy answer. Someone will not get what they want.

Funny how the young male is believed when he says he feels like a girl, yet he has absolutely no idea how to behave like a girl, no idea of the social norms, no idea of the feelings of females and how they'd view his behaviour as voyeuristic, or in teen speak - "creepy".

Almost like he's not a girl at all.

So it might not occur to a male to call out and ask from within the cubicle.

Looking out could have been ignorance how girls behave. Or it might not...

Either way, perfectly reasonable response from the girls.

Women and girls often talk across cubicles. According to my dh and my sons, it's not something men do.

Or texting a friend.

Or just shouting through the closed cubicle door, which is normal-teen-behaviour in many contexts!

Also, Vermont looks stunningly beautiful.

The mother claims her daughter wasn’t sure if to put her team jersey on so popped her head around the corner to check with teammates only to find they started yelling at her again.

Really? Instead of putting it on or carrying it just in case?

This is where the dystopian affirmation model gets us. A person who is biologically male but believes themself to be female gets to access female spaces. Some biological females feel uncomfortable about having a biological male in what they expected to be a single sex space. The females want the biological male to leave but those in authority think they have to support the biological male is their belief irrespective of the impact on the biological females. The females get blamed for objecting to a biological male in their space?

Who wins here? The biological male is not getting their identity recognised in the way they hoped, and the biological females have lost their right to a single sex space. Everyone ends up damaged.

The right to the physical safety, privacy and dignity of the biological females should have been respected. The needs of the biological male should have been managed in a way that didn't compromise that.

The dysphoria or other needs of the biological male should not have been met by undermining the sex based provisions for biological females. The biological male's discomfort with their identity was not the females' problem to solve. Females are not support humans for males.

I'm willing to concede maybe the trans kid was being bullied.

No. I am not willing to concede that.

Those girls who objected have the right to feel safe in their changing room. This male has crossed boundaries that have already been lowered.

I fully agree that this child’s mother is very much to blame here. And the school has allowed and even facilitated it.

In this era of porn, that has filtered down to children, girls and young women are being stripped of boundaries when safeguarding should be as strong and reliable as ever.

My initial reaction was outrage but I'm willing to concede maybe the trans kid was being bullied.

How is that bullying? A man is watching you undress in a room with a big sign that says "girls" on the door, you wouldn't say anything?

Try reading those articles with sex-accurate pronouns, and the girls' behaviour is entirely reasonable.

MrsTerryPratchett, you are so right.

She told Seven Days the aggressive comments came as a surprise as “she never really felt unwelcome or like she didn’t belong”.

And since we spend all our time telling girls to be kind, be nice, not speak out, be accepting, be inclusive... it must be a bloody surprise when you finally hit a boundary.

If we taught girls to have boundaries earlier in the game, that they could speak up, that they can ask for theirs, it wouldn't have been a shock.

It’s a stupid policy creating a situation with guaranteed shitty outcomes for students - it’s either shit for the girls, shit for the trans student, or shit for both the girls and the trans student all at once.

Adults made the mess and adults need to solve the mess.

If a male is being yelled at for watching girls change their clothes, how can this be considered bullying?

If girls tell a male to leave them alone and get out of their changing room, how is this harassment?

Most boys feel welcomed by girls in many situations, but not in locker rooms or changing areas...so who's fault is it that this male seems surprised at being unwelcome in a girls' locker room? Who is giving this male mixed signals that a welcome hello in the classroom is not the same thing as a being welcomed in a girls' locker room? It's not the fault of the girls, it's this kid's mother and, frankly, the school's. Male trans kids would be unwelcome anyplace a boy would be...how hard is this to comprehend?

Voyeurism is a crime in the US, including in Vermont. Seems like the law needs to recognize that gender identity is in conflict with sex protections in Title IX AND with voyeurism laws.

This was an account I read from the opposite perspective: "According to the mother, her daughter was changing in the locker room before volleyball practice when three teammates began to yell at her to get out and stop looking at them.

She told Seven Days the aggressive comments came as a surprise as “she never really felt unwelcome or like she didn’t belong”.

After the confrontation, her daughter chose to change in a bathroom stall. The mother claims her daughter wasn’t sure if to put her team jersey on so popped her head around the corner to check with teammates only to find they started yelling at her again.

The volleyball coach overheard the yelling and told the trans student she planned on reporting the incident to the school’s administration.

Two days later an administrator called the mother to confirm three people reported that her daughter had been bullied and harassed. This launched the investigation meaning the team could not be unsupervised in the locker room."

My initial reaction was outrage but I'm willing to concede maybe the trans kid was being bullied. Doesn't resolve the tension between wanting to be part of the team and being the wrong biological sex 😞

For those not on Twitter

This is amazing - inspirational to other girls dealing with this in their schools and sport/dance/swim teams.

we need to keep repeating the message, our girls have rights too, they shouldn’t be forced to sacrifice themselves for their male peers.

‘No Thank You’

Randolph High School Vermont girls' soccer team members speaking out on their right to sex-based protections (single-sex locker rooms): twitter.com/dailysignal/status/1580660619061170176

I'm no fan of the Daily Signal (looks like Heritage Foundation produced this), but WOW, am I impressed with these young teen girls and how they are portrayed on this segment...such bravery. Why can't anyone listen to the girls when they say they are uncomfortable with males?

Notably, the girls and the parents are mild in their criticism of this incident. I have teen DD, I'd want to scream from the rafters.

well it sounds like you agree that manipulating your way into a space; watching people of the opposite sex in a state of undress and ‘commenting’ using words or sounds and not caring at their discomfort is the action of someone entitled, callous and predatory.

You won’t be able to sue into silence everyone that sees your daughter as a boy/man indefinitely, perhaps it would be kinder to everyone and cheaper to you to get your child to accept the reality that changing sex will never happen.

As a side issue “doing it for attention” is not a good look.

Well that’s a good days work at the office isn’t it? Ten girls roundly told that their feelings of discomfort and unease can be weighed in the balance against one male persons’ feelings of discomfort and unease and the one male persons are made to prevail.

Totally fair and fine, I’m sure.

Daily Mail article:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11269869/Vermont-girls-high-school-volleyball-team-barred-locker-room-transgender-student.html

we’ve been saying for ages that policies that say ‘if anyone complains give the complainer a separate space’ will result in the majority of girls using tiny alternative provision and the male child alone in the locker room with nothing but tumbleweed for company.

I am the mother of the trans student in question and my daughter did not make any comments at all. The entire team can back this up, other than the girl that made up the story for attention," the person said, according to The Daily Signal.

The script about WAG that child had growing up must have been deeply unhealthy. Internalised misogyny is really damaging and clearly that misogyny is being passed down.