Education

Oklahoma School District Cancels Classes After Slew Of Facebook Messages Threatening Transgender Student

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After a biologically male transgender student used the girls’ restroom on the first day of class at an Oklahoma school, uproar ensued and the school district canceled class Monday and Tuesday in result.

The transgender student, who has not been named, used the girls’ bathroom on Aug. 8 in Achille, Oklahoma because he did not know where the staff restroom was, his mother Brandy Rose alleged.

“The transgender is already using the girls bathroom,” Jamie Crenshaw, posted in Achille ISD Parents Group on Facebook, the Brainerd Dispatch reported Tuesday. “We have been told how the school has gone above and beyond to make sure he has his own restroom yet he is still using the girls.”

“This is the same kid that got in trouble as soon as he transferred two years ago for looking over the stalls in the girls bathroom. Enough is enough,” Crenshaw’s post continued.

Other parents posted comments calling the boy a “thing,” and a “half baked maggot,” according to the Brainerd Dispatch. “Parents and Churches need to shut this down,” a parent wrote. “If he wants to be a female make him a female. A good sharp knife will do the job really quick,” another parent posted. None of those posts were made by parents in the Achille district, but from parents residing in Texas and other areas of Oklahoma.

Following the posts, transgender and lgbtq activists wrote to the district’s superintendent Rick Beene and began organizing a protest. The district canceled school Monday and Tuesday at the advice of law enforcement officials who feared that the expected protests could get out of hand.

Beene, Achille Public Schools superintendent, says he’s received more than 300 emails about the incident.

The student’s family filed for a protective order Friday in Bryan County court. “These are adults making threats to a child. I don’t understand it,” Rose said. “My daughter leans very far forward to use the bathroom so I can understand why someone might see her leaning forward as ‘oh my gosh she’s trying to look under the stall,'” Rose also said, addressing the allegations that her child had been peering into the stalls of other girls using the bathroom.

“Grown adults threatening mutilation of a preteen trans child in our own backyard. This is unacceptable.” PFLAG Oklahoma City, an lgbtq advocacy group, tweeted about the Facebook posts. The group also wrote an open letter to the leaders of the Achille ISD.

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