COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio State Board of Education delayed voting on a resolution Tuesday that would urge local school districts to defy proposed new Title IX protections for LGBTQ students, which could put their federal funds for special education, free and reduced lunch and other programs in jeopardy.
Instead of voting on the resolution, the board voted 12 to 7 to send the resolution and other materials to a state board executive committee for further consideration. The date and time of the executive committee meeting hadn’t been scheduled by Tuesday night, when the board wrapped up. But board President Charlotte McGuire of Dayton said she is aiming to schedule the meeting before the next full meeting of the board, which is slated for Nov. 14 and Nov. 15. The meeting will be open to the public.
The timing of the meeting could potentially occur after the Nov. 8 election, when some members of the state school board have re-election battles. Other members of the state board believe the resolution will likely die in the executive committee.
The U.S. Department of Education under President Joe Biden has proposed to revive LGBTQ protections in public schools that existed under the administration of former President Barack Obama but were removed by former President Donald Trump. The rules aren’t yet final. But the proposal would prevent discrimination under Title IX of LGBTQ students.
Transgender students would have to be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender they identify with under the proposed rules.
The Resolution to Support Parents, Schools, and Districts in Rejecting Harmful, Coercive, and Burdensome Gender Identity Policies would require the Ohio Department of Education to send a letter to the over 600 local school districts in Ohio. The letter would notify them the state board opposes the Biden changes and that they don’t have any legal effect, are non-binding and unenforceable. It would also urge the districts to not amend their local policies and procedures in compliance with the federal guidelines.
But since the resolution was first introduced, the Ohio Department of Education attorneys sent the board a legal opinion outlining potential ramifications in Ohio if the board adopts the resolution. A spokeswoman for the department said the letter is not public information, due to attorney-client privilege. The executive committee is expected to consider information from the letter, alongside the resolution.
The executive committee will also consider a proposed new version of the resolution that has been proposed by another board member. The new version is toned down from the original resolution, unveiled in September, in that it removes the section where local schools are urged to buck the Biden administration and risk their federal funds.
But current and proposed new resolutions are similar in that they both support Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s lawsuit over the proposed rule that he filed with nearly two dozen other state attorneys general. Both resolutions also say that the Ohio State Board of Education stands with parents and against “federal overreach.”
The amended version also would eliminate a reference to God, several supposed medical conditions people suffer when they change genders and a claim that girls and women are at increased risk for sexual harassment and assault if they have to share bathrooms and locker rooms with with transgender girls and women.
Board Member Tim Miller of Akron, who is facing two challengers Nov. 8, suggested the further consideration in executive committee.
“I think we owe the people a more open discussion on this,” Miller said. “...These kids exist. And there’s been absolutely no discussion about what we can do for these kids. That bothers me more than anything else in this whole discussion.”
Board Vice President Martha Manchester also wanted more time to discuss the resolution. She said that as people have testified at a meeting in September and on Tuesday, she jotted down questions that she would like answered.
Board member John Hagan of Alliance, who was prepared to support the resolution, said that the resolution may get bogged down in committee and not emerge.
“If the intent is to kill this, and I believe it is, then this is the motion you want to vote for, to send it to committee,” he said.
“Are we going to have a graveside service or are we going to have a cremation?” said member Diana Fessler of Logan County, a joke in reference to the resolution dying.
The board took four hours of public testimony before discussing and voting on the resolution. During part of the public discussion, there were three Ohio highway patrol officers at the Ohio State Board of Education to ensure safety.
“I know why you are doing this: You are afraid of me,” said Ember Zelch, a trans high school senior from a small Ohio town. “I get it. The boys at my school are afraid of me too.”
But transgender children live in fear, too, she said.
Zelch described classmates who teased and bullied her. She asked the board to vote down the resolution for the message it sends.
“Ohio is a horrible place right now for trans kids like me,” she said. “Some people have said, ‘Ember, you only have one more year and then you can leave,’ but many other kids don’t have that liberty.”
Her mom, Minna Zelch, also testified.
“I am the parent of a transgender child in rural Ohio,” she said. “Our family knows fear.”
Minna Zelch said transgender students are “made this way,” just like her cisgender brother was made to be left-handed. There was a time in history when being left-handed was wrong, she said.
But Timothy Garrity of Brunswick believes social media posts influence kids. He described once talking to a student who was confused about her gender after learning about surgeries to change genders.
“My assessment was that her exposure to social media that touts transgenderism as a normal alternative confused her,” said Garrity, a retired Cleveland Metropolitan School District teacher who now substitutes there. “Without guidance as to social and scientific normality, this girl’s thinking and value judgements were skewed, causing significant dissonance and uncertainty in her judgments. If she were allowed to grow into adolescence without reading the highly controversial and coercive views of a very small group of individuals with an ideological agenda, she would be an adolescent growing normally.”
Helena Kerschner took testosterone for 17 months as a young adult and has shared her story on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” after believing she was a trans male in high school. She lived in Ohio for most of high school, she said.
In high school she suffered from depression, few friends and low self-esteem, and believed her emotional pain was due to being trans.
“My (school) counselor immediately affirmed this belief without question and helped me make plans for acquiring hormones and a mastectomy,” she said.
Over time, she said she realized she wasn’t male, and that was before she had undergone surgery,
Students “would better benefit from a compassionate and nuanced approach to their distress, which sees them as a complex human being and not just a gender identity,” she said.
The Rev. Andrew Burns, an associate pastor at King Avenue United Methodist Church in Columbus, said members of his congregation are LGBTQ or love people who are and the resolution would create more harm.
“As a pastor charged with caring for and protecting members of my church, I am begging you to vote down this resolution,” he said. “Vote no on this resolution. The mental, emotional and psychological toll will be huge if it is passed because it takes away protections from the students who need those protections the most. And I would be one of the people who would have to clean up the mess left behind.”
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