Tuesday, hundreds of students, parents and community members filled up the Hempfield Performing Arts Center for a divisive school board meeting. The crowd, filled with supporters & opponents of the current transgender student athlete policy, spoke one-by-one for several hours to board members.
A committee to discuss the transgender student athlete policy created by the school board began in April and is made up of board members, students, coaches and administrators. Their focus is to discuss the athletic policies and "concerns about athletic integrity, student participation and eligibility, gender equity, and safety.”
Before the meeting several LGBTQ+ groups and activists joined with Hempfield parents & students to show their support for an inclusive sports policy - waving flags, holding signs and drawing chalk art on the blacktop.
District parent Jamie Beth Cohen, who organized the rally ahead of the meeting, said, "anyone who cares about the health and well-being of students...and the LGBTQ+ suicide rate should be here to make sure these students are protected.”
During the meeting itself tensions ran high. The school board heard from more than 80 speakers including Jaime Hernandez. Hernandez, who spoke to FOX43 before the meeting was underway said her issue regarding transgender student athletes has more to do with privacy & safety in locker rooms and bathrooms than anything else.
"Does one [student] have the right to make everyone else uncomfortable because they wanted to identify as something else?...That’s our thing – I don’t have a problem if they want to identify as that – that’s on them, but not to push that on other people."
Chris Smiley, the school board's head of the policy, personnel and legal committee, has tasked the board with beginning to draft guidelines for transgender athletic policies and said in his opening statements that to make a firm decision on this now would be "premature."
Another school board meeting is scheduled for August where the issue is expected to come up again and may be voted on before the school year begins.