Mother sues Edmond Public Schools over bathroom fight involving transgender student

The mother of an Edmond Memorial High School girl is suing the school district, claiming her daughter was left severely beaten after an attack by a transgender student in a bathroom designated for girls. 

The lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court claims the school knew the 17-year-old transgender student, who is biologically male and identifies as female, regularly used the bathroom assigned to girls. The lawsuit cites Oklahoma’s recent law that restricts access to public school bathrooms by a person's birth sex.

The incident in question took place Oct. 26. A police officer wrote in a report that the girl whose mother filed the lawsuit had red areas on her face and her eyes were swelling. 

She told the officer the transgender student was already in the bathroom when she entered. She didn’t want to talk to the transgender student, who decided to punch and kick her several times, the girl told the officer. 

The transgender student claimed she was trying to pay money to the girl for clothes, and that the girl had been making fun of her. In a written statement, she told police she was punched at first, then punched back and threw the girl to the ground before walking to class. She also told police she kicked the girl on the side.

Another girl told police when she tried to intervene, the transgender student struck her in the eye.

Police issued the transgender student a juvenile summons for assault and battery, and disorderly conduct. 

A lawyer for the mother suing the school district told The Oklahoman his client’s daughter was 15 years old at the time and endured a beating by a male student who was much larger and identified as female. 

“This lawsuit isn’t, in my eyes, against the school because there was a transgender person in the bathroom as much as the school failed to follow Oklahoma law and protect students from this happening,” Norman-based attorney R. Greg Andrews said. 

The lawsuit seeks an amount in excess of $75,000.

A spokesperson for Edmond Public Schools could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Following the incident, Superintendent Angela Grunewald addressed parents in a YouTube video. 

Grunewald said the transgender student had only attended the school a few days before the incident. The student enrolled as a female, presented as a female and was accepted as a female, Grunewald said.

“You may ask yourself how can that happen?” Grunewald said. “It’s hard to explain, but if a parent comes in and enrolls their child as a certain gender, and when you look at that child by all social norms they look and present themselves as that gender, it’s not something that you would question. Also in high school, birth certificates are not required to start school. So there was no birth certificate in the (student's) file at the time to verify one way or another.”

In the police report, an officer noted that a document on file did have the transgender student marked as male. A caretaker was asked to clarify the matter. They told police the student was born male but identified as female. They also told police the student had undergone emotional and mental abuse in the past, and "moved here to start anew," according to the report.

Police were also told that the transgender student had been bullied.

Grunewald said the transgender student was no longer at Edmond Memorial. 

“We had two policies broken at this time,” Grunewald said. “One, we have a policy against fighting. And we have a policy that our school board enacted in August of this school year that says all students must go to the bathroom of their birth gender, and both of those policies were broken. And both of them have consequences. I can tell you consequences were given for both violations.” 

Oklahoma's public-school bathroom law

In May of last year, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 615 into law. The bill contained an emergency provision which caused it to take effect as soon as the governor wrote his signature.

All public school restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms or shower rooms are now to be designated for the exclusive use of the female or male sex. Use of these rooms is restricted to the sex listed on a person's original birth certificate.

The law requires schools to offer single-occupancy bathrooms and changing rooms for those who don't want to use the facility that aligns with their birth sex.

School districts and charter schools that don't comply face a 5% deduction in their state funding. That could subtract thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the school system.

Federal courts have struck down similar bathroom regulations elsewhere in the United States. 

In Oklahoma, much of the firestorm over school bathrooms centered on Stillwater Public Schools, which had a practice of allowing students to use the restroom matching their gender identity. The school district reported zero incidents of misbehavior from the practice in the six years it was in effect. 

In September, three transgender students filed a lawsuit against the state with the ACLU, Lambda Legal and Covington & Burling LLP.