New CCSD, DOE transgender policies would endanger sexual-abuse victims

Government shouldn’t force abused women to sleep next to biological men. But under the guise of non-discrimination, that’s what’s happening around the country and is poised to happen in Nevada schools.

Here’s an outrageous story the mainstream national media hasn’t breathed a peep about. More than 30 churches in Anchorage, Alaska, run a shelter called the Hope Center. It helps abused women, including women escaping “sexual exploitation and human trafficking.” It offers a soup kitchen and showers for men and women, but at night, the eating area turns into a dormitory for women. Up to 50 women sleep on mats in a large, open room.

In January, the Hope Center twice refused entry to Timothy Coyle, a 52-year-old male with a criminal record that included violence and use of a deadly weapon.

That’s a non-story, except for what happened next. Coyle filed a complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission alleging that the Hope Center had discriminated against him based on his gender identity. Instead of Timothy Coyle, he now claims to be Samantha Coyle, a transgender female. It is against the law, his complaint contends, for the Hope Center to deny him the ability to sleep next to homeless women.

“It would be wholly irresponsible and potentially dangerous for the Hope Center to house biological males in its shelter overnight with the population of abused and battered women who stay at the shelter,” wrote Kevin Clarkson, the Hope Center’s lawyer, in response to the complaint.

That case is still ongoing, but it’s a vivid reminder of the real-life consequences of ignoring biology. There are parallels to what the Nevada Department of Education is considering right now with proposed regulations on transgender students.

Those regulations would require access to “[p]hysical education, assemblies, dances, ceremonies and other school activities that are appropriate for pupils with diverse gender identities and expressions and do not discriminate or segregate according to gender identity or expression.”

Let’s translate that. Your high school daughter is going on an overnight field trip, a “school activity.” This regulation could force your daughter to share a room with a biological male, if he claims to be a female. That’s an example of not segregating “according to gender identity.” You and she may not even know there will be a male in her room. Another section of the regulations would require school employees and students to use the pronouns selected by a student’s family. The regulations would also demand that schools allow biological males into girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms.

Department officials are discussing those regulations on March 30, but that’s not soon enough for the Clark County School District. On Thursday, trustees will decide if the district should have its own transgender policy. All signs point to that as-yet-undrafted policy allowing students to select their own gender.

This is no longer about helping all students find a locker room — or bedroom during overnight school trips — in which they feel comfortable. Transgender activists aren’t interested in the obvious compromise: Let transgender students use single-occupancy facilities. Instead, they want to create a policy that sexual predators can easily abuse, as has happened in Washington and Wyoming. These policies would be especially traumatic for survivors of sexual abuse, which includes more than one in 10 high school females.

“Why would people knowingly invite further exploitation by creating policies with no safeguards in place to protect them from injury?” wrote Kaeley Triller Haver, a rape survivor, on transgender bathrooms. “Don’t they know that, for women who have experienced sexual trauma, finding the courage to use a locker room at all is a freaking badge of honor?”

If they know, they don’t care. Politicians who put their liberal ideology above basic biology are endangering the privacy and safety of girls and women around the country. Don’t let them do it in Nevada.

Listen to Victor Joecks discuss his columns each Monday at 9 a.m. with Kevin Wall on 790 Talk Now. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.