Students at a New Hampshire high school and middle school staged a walkout after the school board banned urinals and shared locker rooms amid a dispute over separating bathrooms based on sex not gender identity.
The protest started Friday – lasted about 45 minutes – with more than 150 students walking out of the Milford High School and middle school in opposition of the new bathroom restrictions.
Student Jay Remella told WMUR: ‘Nobody that I know – ask anyone here – no one requested this change.’ He also said many were unaware of the new policy and that it was made ‘solely by the school board member and a complaint by a parent.’
Friday’s demonstration comes after a lengthy debate by the board of education over whether to separate school bathrooms and locker rooms by the sex assigned at birth or by gender identity, The Boston Globe reported.
Board Education member Noah Boudreault proposed the urinal prohibition as part of a ‘compromise,’ that was accepted by a 4-1 vote on Monday.
Friday’s demonstration comes after a lengthy debate by the board of education over whether to separate school bathrooms and locker rooms by the sex assigned at birth or by gender identity, The Boston Globe reported
Superintendent Christi Michaud told the news outlet many students – especially the male students at the high school – expressed their concerns and posed questions regarding the newly imposed bathroom restrictions to members of her team.
‘They feel as though there wasn’t an issue or a concern here at the high school,’ she said.
She said the tighter rules could lead to bathroom bottlenecks and detract from time in the classroom, but said the school personnel are working to comply with the board’s directive.
Sixteen-year-old transgender student Nico Romeri spoke at a school board meeting on February 6 urging it to reject the ban.
He expressed his concerns that the policies could have a negative impact on the mental health of the district’s LGBTQ students.
He said he and other queer students just want to be treated the same as cisgender high school students.
‘I want my high school experience to be just like everyone else’s just like getting my license, taking biology class, and figuring my life out, not fighting for it,’ the sophomore student said.
The teen also told school leaders and parents that they ‘should not let fear dictate their actions.’
‘I see all these scared people on both sides not knowing what to do yet wanting to help their children in different ways,’ he said.
‘The best way you can help your children is not discriminating against their peers but listening and helping your child grow. That is all we want.’
After the plan was announced, Romeri later told the Globe he was glad to see the school board settle on a compromise plan, though he views the plan itself as unnecessary.
Sixteen-year-old transgender student Nico Romeri spoke at a school board meeting on February 6 urging the school board to reject the ban. He expressed his concerns that the policies could have a negative impact on the mental health of the district’s LGBTQ students
High school and middler schoolers outside Milford HS gather in protest opposing the ban
Signs, ‘We Want Urinals’ showing their outrage over the new bathroom restrictions that many students said they were never made aware of the
There are 1,200 middle and high school students.
Most of the stalls are designated for girls, and those stalls are not evenly distributed between the schools and the genders, according to The Boston Globe.
The ban had replaced an earlier proposal from vice chair Nathaniel Wheeler to separate bathrooms and locker rooms strictly on students’ gender assigned at birth — which was criticized by LQBTQ students, the news outlet reported.
In addition to excluding urinal use, Boudreault’s plan also prevents students from using shared changing areas in school locker rooms. Students who change clothes for PE class are told do so in a bathroom stall.
The maximum occupancy for each school bathroom and locker room however, is determined by the number of stalls there are.
Boudreault told the Globe that ‘the issue at hand for me is student safety,’
He told the news outlet that he doesn’t deem LGBTQ youth or their peers as inherently dangerous, but pointed out that something needed to be done citing concerns raised about Wheeler’s proposal, student privacy and bathroom access in general – that would essentially help Milford schools deal with other problems – he said, like students vaping.
‘My proposed solution took care of a myriad of other issues that the school district is experiencing,’ he said, ‘so instead of fighting the gender fight, I decided to fight the larger fight.’
