Education officials in California are holding their breath as a transgender rights law set to take effect Jan. 1, 2014 may be terminated, the Associated Press reported
Signed by Governor Jerry Brown, the law requires public schools to allow transgender children access to all gender-based activities and usage of facilities separated by sex. The law is the first in the nation of its kind.
Conservative group, Privacy for All Students, is pushing for the law to be suspended, the AP reported. The coalition collected the signatures of hundreds of thousands of people in a referendum against the law.
"We don't know what's going to happen when kids come back from their holiday vacation," California Republican Senator Steve Knight told the AP. Knight voted against the new law. "Are there going to be 15-year-old girls talking in the bathroom and in walks a boy? What are they going to do? Scream? Run out?"
Christy Musser said she would take two of her three kids enrolled in public school out.
"At this time in their lives, these kids are young, innocent and are just learning about themselves and their bodies, and they don't need to worry about boys coming in the locker room and looking at them, or vice versa," Musser told the AP.
Privacy for All Students has until Jan. 8 to make sure the signatures are valid, which is done by arbitrarily spot-checking the names. California's secretary of state will approve or reject the referendum, or have each signature evaluated, the AP reported.
If the law is repealed, the California School Boards Association hopes existing anti-discrimination laws will prompt schools to go ahead and support transgender students.
Ashton Lee, who was born a girl, told school administrators at Manteca High School that he was transgender. The school at first did not take Lee seriously, the AP reported, but that changed after Lee took action and lobbied for the new law earlier this year. Lee, 16, is now allowed to use the boy's bathroom and locker rooms.
"If it gets taken away, I'm kind of worried my school will be like, 'Well, we don't have to do it anymore,' " Lee told the AP.
