US: Colorado school board member says trans students should be ‘castrated’ before using bathrooms
A Colorado school board member has said that transgender students should undergo “castration” before allowing them the right to use the bathrooms that fit their gender identity.
Speaking at a meeting last month, Delta County School Board member Katherine Svenson said she opposed the recently passed laws in California and Massachusetts that allow transgender students equal access to school facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms.
According to NewsChannel 5, residents of Delta County expressed concern Ms Svenson’s statements.
She had passed out an issue of the Education Reporter during the meeting, and said she wanted to show people “what is going on in the rest of the country.”
She said: “Massachusetts and California have passed laws relating to calling a student, irrespective of his biological gender, letting him perform as the gender he thinks he is, or she is.
“I just want to emphasise: not in this district. Not until the plumbing’s changed. There would have to be castration in order to pass something like that around here.”
She later defended her comments, saying: “I don’t have a problem if some boys think they are girls, I’m just saying as long as they can impregnate a woman, they’re not going to go in the girls locker room.”
Delta County officials have disagreed with Ms Svenson’s transphobic remarks.
Assistant Superintendent Kurt Clay told NewsChannel 5: “That’s an opinion of hers. We truly believe in Delta County School District that every student has different needs, and that we are here to address those individual needs.”
In June, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled to say that a decision to stop a trans girl from using the girls’ bathrooms at her school was discriminatory, and that she should be allowed to use facilities appropriate to her gender identity.
