Fannin County School Superintendent Mark Henson made it very clear that he will comply with providing transgender bathrooms in Fannin County schools. He said, “Folks we’re here for kids. We’re here to do the right thing. We’re here to obey the law. If we don’t obey the law there could be consequences… We’re looking after all 3000 of our children. We can’t lose our sight of this school system.”
The consequences which Mr. Henson is speaking about is $3.5 million of federal education monies which could be lost if the system stops complying with Title IX. Title IX, a civil rights amendment, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally-funded education programs and activities. Title IX covers an incredibly wide range of potential areas of discrimination from amount and type of sports teams offered at schools to amount and types of bathrooms provided to students. Subsequent interpretations of the law show that “gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notion of masculinity or femininity” comes under the umbrella of sex discrimination. Title IX is not something that a school board can vote to agree or disagree with. Title IX is federal law.
School Board member Terry Bramlett told the board that he has always taught in his seminars, “You can seek to change the law, but you cannot not obey the law.”
Mr. Henson’s remarks at the end of the Fannin County Schools’ Board of Education workshop meeting were to inform the board and public that the school system will continue to comply with Title IX requirements and provide transgender bathrooms. Mr. Henson is making these remarks before anticipated protests at the formal Board of Education meeting on Thursday, May 10th. The anticipated protests are in response to Fannin County’s compliance with Title IX requirements about bathrooms for transgendered students. The protests are expected to take place during the public comments section of the meeting. The School Board will not be making any motions at the meeting in regards to voting for or against transgendered bathrooms. The bathrooms are already in the schools because the system is complying with federally-mandated Title IX regulations.
Mr. Henson thanked Board members for making his job easier because their hearts are in the right place. He added that he hopes this period of time does not disrupt the unity of the board and asked them to please bear with the process of standing up for the law. He said, “We do this job because we care about our kids.”
The Fannin County Sherriff’s department has begun preparing for an anticipated protest which will have groups opposing and supporting transgender student rights. There is a possibility that the School Board will move its meeting from the Board of Education office to a larger space at Fannin County High School to accommodate the anticipated crowd.
See related post: Transgender Bathrooms in Fannin County Schools
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We will stand together and file a lawsuit about our straight rights! You are focused on a parent teaching it's child to be different. Children do not know different until it's taught. If this county took a stand and withdrew about 275 plus students your 3.5 million in funding will be gone! Wake up stupid! .
i think this is messed up. i'm having to homeschool my little girl. i say stand together and file the lawsuit about our rights. a lot of ppl cannot afford to homeschool their kids and it makes it hard for them to do so. weather they work full time jobs or just can't get the time to do so, this is wrong.
Why in the world would a public school system withdraw 275 students? For being different from you? That's why laws like Title IX are in place, to safeguard against things like that happening to those 275 students who may be different from you but are still every bit as deserving of a public education as you are.
Ohhhhh there is sooooo much more to this than you must realize. Not a bit of it is because someone is different. And I totally agree that everyone, gay, straight, trans, skinny, fat, short, tall, black, yellow, hispanics, every living person does deserve an education.
its not about discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s about having the right to not feel insecure about yourself in bathrooms.
there are policies and bills that protect people’s right to privacy and particularly the right for children in a school setting to not be exposed to the private anatomy of the opposite sex. This is more than enough reason in itself to pull out many more than just 275 students. Not to mention how wrong it is in any way you look at it, to have ever even thought of such a thing as boy/girl restroom sharing, MOST OF ALL in schools with young children!!!
You people with your heads in the sand is what's hurting the kids!! Think about how you ignorant adults are making these kids feel no wonder they hurt themselves or commit suicide!!! Its a flippin bathroom for Christ sakes!! When u go to restrooms are YOU worried/thinking about other ppls private parts...jeez pee n leave!!
Straight rights? Get your head out of your , bigot. Straight and gay have nothing to do with someone being transgender. This is a school, and the focus should be the students learning. If you think someone going to the bathroom is disrupting the student's learning, then by all means send your kid to another school. There are much worse things happening in Fannin than someone trying to go pee.
If you think children shouldn't "learn to be different" then you're part of the problem. Not every child wants to be a mindless, god-fearing farmer or real estate agent in the middle of nowhere.
Exactly!! Pee wash your hands n leave its that simple..
Diana, I don't think you can do math. I'd hate to see your homeschooled students.
If you withdrew 275 students and the school system continued to follow the law to get the grant, that would mean MORE money per in school student. You'd be giving the more open minded and better students a better education. On second thought, go ahead!
You have that wrong. The government funds X amount of money per student enrolled in public schools. If there are less children the schools receive less not more. Maybe it's you who need to do your math.
Ever read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience? There are times when you can disobey the law instead of waiting for the law to change. If you have principles and integrity.
Diana,
Wow, what a boring world you live must live in - one has to be taught to be different! Lol!: A person doesn't chose to be LBGT, but then again, you probably don't believe in science unless it is on Liberty University's "curriculum", riigghhht? And if the federal got w/drew its funds from YOUR county, you'd fast be complaining about the dirt roads - or maybe it is an earlier century you'd like to live in anyway.
I know several gays that argue they DO choose to be gay..if choice, no civil rights protection, so dey do wit is politically expedient.
Well then the people you know are not truly gay sir...being gay is NOT a choice!! I raised a gay child in the bonham and Dodd city school system and neither were very nice to my child or me for that matter...times have changed..the LGBT community is in the forefront now and its time you people accept it!! What if this was your child being mistreated?? You would dam well b singing a different tune...I guarantee you
if all the parents that are against this as i am will home school their kids from now on,they won't have enough students to keep the schools open
What some of you don't realize is that if this allowed, then anyone can use any restroom, and that means that a rapist could walk right into any restroom. Please stop and think for just one minute, if you have a child, do you want to take a chance of that child being molested? Not by an innocent transgender person, but by a deranged rapist, or child molester. Please stop and think for just one minute.
We already have teachers on trail for sex with students.. what is this bathroom sharing supposed to help? A few kids not feel bad about themselves? Last time I was in a school (today) there are closed stalls in each both bathrooms so I'm confused. Transgenders or LGBT dont want to be singles out .... but they want their own bathroom? Also if we're worried about their well being how are they going to be any better off using whatever bathroom they want again? It seems to me that if (name taken out by editor) wanted to use the boys room she'd /he'd get way more ridicule for that from his/her peers than simply using the girla bathroom.
Its not the transgender person wanting a different bathroom its the uninformed and ignorant that continue to keep insisting on separate restrooms... I guarantee you my transgender child just wants to pee n leave he's not in there for anything else...if a predator wants a child they will snatch them from anywhere!!
I'm sorry but this has nothing g to do with the "wellfare" of our children. All Mr. Henson is doing is bowing g down to the government over money. If they were really thinking of our kids, they would not let this happen. We are having this garbage shoved down our throats and our kids throat. Do what you want as an adult. However, leave my kids out of these "gender" misconceptions. Your either a girl or a boy. PEROID. We have a right as Christians to voice our opinion and be heard and to oppose this, not let it happen. As a taxpayer in Fannin county, I will not stop fighting for our rights, morality, and our religious beliefs. Get real people! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT OUR CHILDREN AND THEIR WELLFARE! If they did, they would put up more of a fight for our very impressionable children. FANNIN COUNTY LET'S DO THE RIGHT THING!
Its"Christians" like you that keep the turmoil rolling...how in the world would the school system run with out the federal money?? Are you Christians gonna pay to run them?? I'm just curious as to how the schools would function without federal monies?? Enlighten me plz.......
So tell me Pilate, if the law told you to kill your jewish friends would you comply? Of course you would! There are some things, like the enumeration of God's morals, that are higher than the law. History is full of such men as is on this school board. These same spineless Torreys would have moved to the Bahamas rather than fight the King during our revolution. State schools should just give up federal funding rather than put up with this nonsense. Gutless twits!
Days troop... Problem is many cant home school kids due to work & can't afford private school...what dey to do?
Transgender is a physiological change, not a biological change. We are born male or female. Plastic surgery does not change that, wishful thinking does not change that, mentally disturbed does not change that. Hermaphrodite is another matter, However I have yet heard of a hermaphrodite lobby.
Just another sinister ploy to destroy the family unit, the strongest institution we have left in America.
Grandparents, retirees, and stay at home parents could start a community support group of home school resources and create a network for those parents who work.
The simple solution to this is totally being ignored. One bathroom for transgenders. It appears that this is not the purpose of having separate bathrooms. If it were there would not be this discussion. Everyone would be OK with it. But I believe this is about infringing on the rights of boys and girls to have their privacy and safety from predictors. And, yes, I will go back to the Bible. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. We are who we were born to be. Accept it.
Most boys don't want girls walking in the restroom while they are using it, and most girls don't want boys walking in their restroom. Why not have a separate one for boys only, one for girls only and one for either sex?
Also if school officials haven't realized it yet, guess what having both teenage sexs allowed in one restroom will lead to???? Sex at school! And are the male and female teachers going to patrol both restrooms? If so what's going to happen when a male teacher walks in and sees a girl sitting on a urinal because that's what she associates herself with?