Students at Esperanza High School in Anaheim, California, staged a walkout protest in defiance of administrators permitting a trans-identifying male student to use the girls’ bathroom.
According to a report from the California Family Council, high school junior Lesley Ledesma confronted a male student entering the girls’ bathroom.
“When I asked, ‘Why are you in this bathroom?’ I was told, ‘I am trans, I identify as a girl,’” Ledesma said. “I was immediately alarmed not because I wanted to disrespect anyone’s identity, but because I was suddenly uncertain about my own privacy and safety in a space I had always trusted.”
“As a woman, this felt like a slap in the face to me,” she said. “As a young woman who has used the girls’ bathroom my entire life, I was now being asked to step aside. It didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel respectful. It felt like my concerns, and the concerns of other girls, were being overlooked.”
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Trustee Leandra Blades said of the matter: “What this is about is the safety of our people. Our females do not feel safe in the bathrooms. Our females do not feel safe on the athletic field. They don’t feel safe. And so what is the state of California doing? They’re violating Title IX.”
In 2013, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1266, which states that “a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”
Ten years later, in 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill requiring public schools to provide gender-neutral bathrooms.
