Dad Keeps Kids Home After Transgender Bathroom Encounter

A southeast Michigan father who is upset that “a 9-year-old girl [was] in the boys' bathroom with my son” is vowing to keep his children home from their elementary school until the district explains its transgender bathroom policies.

Matt Stewart, whose three sons are all students at Howell Public Schools’ Southwest Elementary School, told The Livingston Daily, that his 9-year-old came home from school and reported he had encountered a transgender classmate in the boys’ bathroom.

He reportedly told his father that school officials had instructed the transgender student “to look at the wall,” while the boys were told to stand closer to the urinals.

Stewart questioned such a policy and said the Howell school board needs to explain it before he sends his kids back to school.

“I have three children in Southwest Elementary School and they are being humiliated and intimidated,” Stewart told The Livingston Daily Wednesday. “Our kids are absent from school until there’s a policy in place that keeps them from being humiliated or intimidated. …”

The Livingston Daily said its calls to Howell schools hadn’t been returned. Patch reached out to Superintendent Erin MacGregor for comment, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.

Michigan Bathroom Bill

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, followed up on an earlier promise to introduce legislation similar to North Carolina’s if the State Board of Education didn’t back away from controversial guidelines to make schools more welcoming to LGBTQ students.

• NEWSLETTER: Top Michigan Headlines from Patch Editor Beth Dalbey

The legislation, Senate Bill 0933, is largely symbolic.

Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, told the Detroit Free Press the proposed bathroom bill isn’t a priority and he has no plans to schedule hearings on it.

The letter from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education threatened a loss of federal funds for schools that aren't in compliance.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are from Texas, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Georgia and the governor of Maine, along with a few school districts.

North Carolina-Type Laws: Patch Poll

Several states have passed so-called bathroom bills at the same time a national poll suggests a majority of Americans don’t fret much about which bathroom people use.

In the most high-profile bathroom bill case, North Carolina and the Department of Justice have filed lawsuits against each other over the state's new law that restricts bathroom and locker-room usage for transgender people.

A recent CNN/ORC national poll found 57 percent of Americans don’t agree with bathroom bills that restrict where transgender people can use the bathroom, compared with 38 percent who do. The results reflected party differences, with 62 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of independents and 48 percent of Republicans opposing bathroom bills.

An unscientific Patch Poll that asked the same questions as the CNN/ORC poll — “Overall, do you favor or oppose laws that require transgender individuals to use facilities that correspond to their gender at birth rather than their gender identity?” — showed the following:

• Strongly favor: 50 percent
• Strongly oppose: 41 percent
• Somewhat favor: 4 percent
• Somewhat oppose: 5 percent

Those votes reflect the views of about 1,090 readers who had taken the poll by noon Thursday.

Image credit: Patch file photo