The fight for transgender rights continues at Madisonville-North Hopkins High School. 15 to 20 students and community members rallied Saturday on the old courthouse lawn in downtown Madisonville.
Organizers currently have more than 300 signatures on a petition circulating the school. The petition requests teachers call students by their preferred pronouns and to allow students to use bathrooms for the gender of their choosing. Currently transgender students are asked to use handicap/unisex restrooms. The Madisonville Messenger’s Lead Reporter Jessica Dockery covered the weekend rally.
“The students did have a lot of support it seemed by folks driving by, honking their horns hollering positive things outside of the windows,” said Dockery. “I didn’t really see any negative reactions from the community while I was there. “
Dockery says the protestors weren’t just from MNHHS. Students from Hopkins County Central High School and some home-schooled students also attended the Saturday rally.
Dockery said the organizers of the rally are trying to promote awareness.
“They are just trying to shed a little bit of light on their cause and they are looking to make more people in the community aware of what they’re really looking for. They are looking for gender equality. “
In Dockery’s article for The Messenger she explains what school officials are doing in wake of the petition.
In the Hopkins County School District, there are no policies regarding the use of school bathrooms by transgender students, according to Communications and Community Engagement Specialist Lori Harrison. "It is unchartered territory," Hopkins County Schools Superintendent Linda Zellich said in a previous report. "To my knowledge, there's not any law regulating that right now. As individual students present things to us, we're going to deal with them individually. "If a child has a concern, they can come to us and talk to us," she continued. "We're going to deal with it with great confidentiality and sensitivity, and try to approach it as best that we understand with regard to regulations and directives that have been presented to us."
State Senator C.B. Embry, R-Morgantown, is sponsoring a bill that bans students from using locker rooms or bathrooms that don’t match their biological gender. Embry’s bill, SB 76, would also allow students to sue the school if the proposed rule is violated.
