By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
Several members of the public voiced their opinions and two speakers sparred in a testy verbal exchange before the ensued between two speakers before the Hopewell Valley Regional school board approved a policy titled “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students” on Monday.
Restroom availability and locker room accessibility at Hopewell Valley schools are two topics addressed in a new policy.
Voting in favor were Gordon Lewis, Jenny Long, Michael Markulec, Alyce Murray, Adam Sawicki, Bruce Gunther and Lisa Wolff. Roy Dollard abstained, while Leigh Ann Peterson was absent.
When the policy was introduced during the May 16 school board meeting, Ms. Wolff, the board president, offered a brief description of some of the details.
“It simply documents how the district is already working with transgender students,” Ms. Wolff said. “While it’s several pages long, I’d boil it down to two overarching positions. First, the responsibility for determining a student’s gender identity rests with the student. Second, all students, regardless of the underlying reason, will have options to ensure their safety, privacy and comfort.”
On the issue of bathrooms and locker rooms, she said, “If any student has a need or desire for increased privacy, we provide it.”
“We (are) acknowledging the rights of both any transgender students who are in the locker room as well as any students who are not transgender who might also have concerns of privacy or comfort,” Ms. Wolff said.
At Monday’s meeting, before the board voted on the policy, Werner Graf of Hopewell Township spoke during the public comment and requested that board not adopt the document.
“I do believe that this is one of those issues where a little bit more thought and maybe sending it back to committee is appropriate,” said Mr. Graf, a former Hopewell Valley school board member who has two daughters in Hopewell Valley schools.
He said, in his opinion, “This policy as written opens the school board up to liability” and that “it appears that you’re placing yourself in a position of being the arbiter of sexual identity.”
“As I understand the policy having read it, a child can go into the bathroom or the locker room based on the gender that they identify with. However, that is subject to some overview,” he said. “If you deny one child and allow another, I don’t see how this board can be put in that position with potentially having a lawsuit on their hands.”
The second reason, Mr. Graf said, is the “danger that I think it introduces. Right now, and especially on the girls’ side in particular with two girls I have in the system, you’re opening up a safe space for the ladies that I don’t think has to be opened up.”
“The girls in our school system have the right to be comfortable undressing in front of people, and they have the right not to be exposed to other people of the opposite sex regardless of how they identify,” he said. “I know that there are comments that I’ve read online and so on that there is no documentation of transgender aggression or anything like that. But it’s not just the transgender that we open our students up to.”
Mr. Graf also said described a possible scenario involving a staff member.
“If you have a janitor who identifies with being a woman, who are you to say that he shouldn’t be able to do his job and maintain that locker room while the girls are in there,” he said.
Mr. Graf took issue with the school district officials working with Garden State Equality to address several situations in the district. Garden State Equality is a statewide advocacy and education organization for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“Garden State Equality is clearly a partisan organization,” he said. “This is a non-partisan board.”
“You’ve set a very bad precedent by letting them in the door because, to me, it tells me that they have a preferentially treatment in the way that the policy might have been put together.”
After Mr. Graf spoke, several individuals addressed the board from the podium, followed by Lee Rosenfield of Hopewell Township.
“In full disclosure, I am also a member of the board of directors of Garden State Equality,” Mr. Rosenfield said.
He also said he has two children enrolled at schools in the district and that he is gay.
“I just came here just to listen and I didn’t expect to speak, but in light of one of the comments that was made, I feel the need to speak,” Mr. Rosenfield said. “Forty-nine of my gay brothers were massacred this past week (in Orlando, Fla.) and it’s the direct result of fear mongering. And that is exactly what is happening when comments are made about transgender people going into the bathroom that they so choose that they identity with their gender. It’s nothing more than fear mongering.”
“I would imagine that the school district has appropriate policies for dealing with anything with that happens inappropriately and that swift disciplinary action would happen against another student, a janitor or anyone to that effect,” he said. “Failure to do so would be failure of the school to properly protect its students, and anything other than that is pure fear mongering and hate mongering, and it should be utterly rejected by the school board and by any sensible human being. What happened in Orlando is exactly this.”
Mr. Graf seemed to take offense at what Mr. Rosenfield said.
“The gentleman addressed me directly. I have a standing in the community and I do not like to be associated with hate mongering,” Mr. Graf said speaking from a seat in the audience
Ms. Wolff said, “So noted. He (Mr. Rosenfield) was talking to us, he might have looked at you.”
“No comments about me personally. I will not accept that, and you should not accept that as a school board,” Mr. Graf said.
“I did not actually hear any comments directed at you,” Ms. Wolff told Mr. Graf.
