A response from New Richmond High School’s principal has ignited fresh controversy after parents learned a biological male student was allowed to use girls’ locker room facilities, with administrators citing state and federal law as justification.
Earlier this month, parents and students in the New Richmond School District raised complaints after learning a male student was being allowed to use girls’ locker room/facilities. The controversy spread online after widely shared social-media posts, including a post that released the principal’s response to a parents inquiry.
The principal, Nicole Benson, says that this issue is out of the district’s hands. She claims that since this is a “matter controlled by state and federal law,” she is prohibited from preventing boys from entering private female areas.
She also told the parent that the daughter can instead use the schools “single, private bathrooms available for her,” instead of using the girls locker room to avoid confrontation. (RELATED: TrumpRx Launch: How the New Website Slashes Prescription Drug Costs)
In Wisconsin, schools are required to obey the Seventh Circuit ruling in the Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District. The Seventh Circuit permitted an injunction that allowed a transgender student access to bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, not their biological sex. Citing that the “harms” to the student were more important than the district’s projected harms, which were labeled speculative.
When introduced, Title IX was designed to protect girls’ and women’s equal opportunity, and privacy in intimate spaces is part of that protection. The district’s solution to tell girls to use a private, separate restroom if they’re uncomfortable, is an avoidance of a bigger issue concerning the safety and security of young girls. (RELATED: Wisconsin DPI Faces Scrutiny Over $369K Waterpark Resort Getaway)
This topic remains as an evolving issue in Wisconsin. In 2023 Mukwonago had a similar case, including a situation where parents were concerned about privacy of the girls facilities, and not the “culture war abstraction” that it was becoming. This past year, the case’s decision was scrapped by SCOTUS and is now pending to be re-argued as both sides will resubmit arguments.
