A Teen’s Desperate Plea for Her Rights

A high school student is fighting for her rights. She’s objecting to having to submit to President Obama’s Title IX guidance that all public school bathrooms and locker rooms be open to any students who identify as transgender.

Sigourney Coyle says she should not have to undress in front of a biological male in the gym locker room. And she won’t.

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Coyle just started ninth grade at Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 29. A week before, she stood before the district school board to calmly, rationally, explain her point of view.

“I am a woman and I identify as a woman. You can’t make me change in front of someone who I don’t identify with, who is physically male,” Sigourney told the East Penn School Board. Coyle’s remarks were recorded and posted to Facebook by her mother, Aryn Coyle.

“I was a little nervous because I knew I was going up in front of the people in charge of the whole district, but I also knew I was standing up for my rights — and that I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Coyle told LifeZette.

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.facebook.com/aryn.coyle/videos/10210730803364898/”]

Coyle, whose family is nondenominational Christian, told the school board she feels discriminated against for being forced to change clothes for gym class alongside transgender students.

Weighing in on the controversy, California-based psychologist Shoshanna Bennett said, “The bathroom issue is on its face a nonsensical one. Even beyond the faith argument, students need and should be given privacy. It is unsettling for many kids to see others even of their own gender naked, and at their age developmentally, it is even more important. Why aren’t there private bathroom stalls available for any student who wants to use one?”

If Coyle refuses to comply, she is barred from participating in gym — which is a requirement for graduation.

“What Sigourney did takes great courage for a 14-year-old girl,” said Aryn Coyle. “It’s time for other parents to go before their school boards and fight for their children, too.”

The school offered her an alternative of taking gym next summer, according to Lehighvalleylive.com. Her mother supports her daughter’s brave actions. She points out the inconsistency of progressive thinking about bathrooms and locker rooms during the school day.

“Movies with full frontal nudity are given an R-rating,” Aryn Coyle told LifeZette. “There doesn’t even need to be sex, just nudity. That means that a child can’t get in to see it without an adult. Why is a locker room any different? Obama’s letter is suggesting that kids as young as 11 are exposed to full frontal nudity behind closed doors, in order to change for swim class.”

Aryn Coyle and her husband are both Army veterans. Her husband is a former Apache helicopter pilot who deployed four times and is now a pastor. “He fought for the school’s right to be wrong,” she said simply.

A New Hampshire businesswoman, Lisa Ferrari, has heard of similar objections in her state by high school students. She does not believe the perceived needs of the few outweighing the proven needs of the many.

“Since when do one or two students set the tone for the whole school?” Ferrari asked. “I find these schools incredibly weak. Straight kids seem to have no one but their parents in their corner — while LGBT kids have the president of the United States behind them. If I were this young woman’s mother, I would be very proud.”

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Coyle’s mother is indeed proud. “What Sigourney did takes great courage for a 14-year-old girl,” said Aryn Coyle. “It’s time for other parents to go before their school boards and fight for their children, too.”

The East Penn School District issued a statement to BuzzFeed saying it would continue to comply with current Title IX regulations.

“The district administration is currently reviewing recent communication relative to transgender students received from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education, and will consult with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, and the East Penn Board solicitor,” the statement said. “At the present time, the district feels it is in full compliance with the law.”

“We have fought for the school’s right to be wrong,” said Coyle of her and her husband’s service in the Army.

Sigourney Coyle made sure to say in her public remarks that her words were not against transgenders, but for her rights. “I also feel nothing against transgenders,” she said in a soft voice. “I know some and I don’t have anything wrong with them. I just would not like their rights to overrule my own. We are equals. They are not better and I am not better.”

Aryn Coyle told LifeZette, “She isn’t looking to deny transgender students their right to bodily privacy. She is looking to defend her own. Her high school has denied her religious exemption — the same school that allows Muslims to wear head coverings and step out of class for prayer — even though hats and bandanas are against school policy.”

There has been a positive development in the country’s bathroom brouhaha — the same day Sigourney Coyle took to the microphone in front of the school board, Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction barring federal agencies from taking action against school districts that don’t follow the Obama administration’s May recommendations on transgender bathroom policies in schools.

Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson said the agency is reviewing O’Connor’s ruling. “The department is disappointed in the court’s decision, and we are reviewing our options,” Iverson said, according to CNN.

Civil rights groups that include Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the ACLU issued a joint statement calling O’Connor’s ruling “unfortunate.”