GRAND RAPIDS — Sporting a button with the pink, blue and white transgender flag on his blue Minnesota hoodie, Elton Rogalla addressed the Grand Rapids School Board at its meeting Monday, March 3.
“Trans children have a right to exist,” he told the Board. “They have a right to go to school, get an education, just like every other child in this community and anywhere in the world.”
Rogalla, a Grand Rapids alumnus, is a transgender man. Though he lives in Duluth, a recent widely shared social media post from a parent — and the hateful responses — prompted Rogalla and three others to speak at the School Board meeting. The parent was upset that his daughter and her friend were reprimanded for filming a trans student in the restroom.
“They deserve the right, like all children do, to go to the bathroom during school,” Rogalla said. “They, like all children, deserve to not be harassed while they are trying to use the restroom at school.”
No one objected to transgender students using the same restrooms as other students during public comment at the School Board meeting, though some parents said on social media that they’ve contacted school officials.
Wade Albrecht told KAXE that on Thursday his daughter, a freshman at GRHS, called him in a panic, saying a boy came in and stood in the corner of the bathroom.
When the student refused to leave after Albrecht’s daughter told them it was a girl's restroom, Albrecht told her to film the student standing in the corner and go to the principal.
“Basically, the principal’s reaction was, ‘You don’t need to blow this out of proportion. You shouldn’t be recording anyone in the bathroom,’” Albrecht recounted.
“ ... Made the girls delete the video, and I guess I haven’t really heard much since then. He did call me and try to explain.”
The Grand Rapids High School student handbook says cellphone use is not permitted in locker rooms or restrooms, cameras are not allowed anywhere there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, and students cannot take photos or videos of students or staff without express written consent.
Albrecht shared a public post about the incident on Facebook, objecting to the principal’s requirement to delete the video because there was no inappropriate content.
“I think it’s time we the people stand up for our normal non mentally ill kids what should us as parents do,” he wrote, “[I] am beyond mad at this Trans right bull****.”
Albrecht’s post received dozens of comments and shares before he took it down “because of all the extra negatively amongst people commenting on my post and things possibly getting violent and out of control,” he wrote in a subsequent post.
Angel Deal, the mother of the trans student, told KAXE her 17-year-old daughter just recently officially transitioned, filing all the necessary paperwork with the school district.
Deal said her daughter had her earbuds in and was waiting for a stall to open in the bathroom. Deal had been informed of the incident and said the school had arranged an alternate bathroom plan.
Then she saw Albrecht’s post.
“I still didn’t do nothing. I mean, I made a comment, I think once, about, ‘The school took the right action, everything’s legal and signed or whatever,’” Deal said in a voice memo.
When a photo of her daughter in the hall at school, with the daughter’s name on it, began circulating, that’s when Deal contacted the school and the police.
“I told all of them online, ‘Do not share my child's picture. She’s a minor, number one. Number two, I never gave you permission to do that or take my child’s picture, put her name up there,” Deal said.
“For God’s sake, if these people cause my child to get hurt by doing this and the hate that they’re spreading — no, just no.”
Deal said her child was terrified to go back to school after students harassed her at lunch the next day and is doing online school this week. In a message to KAXE, she said the school is “making sure she’s ok and offering to help in anyway they can.”
Superintendent Matt Grose said Grand Rapids has had trans students for many years.
“We’ve been able to work with students and their families to protect the rights and safety for all students for many, many years,” he said. “We’ve gotten really good at that.”
He said the district encourages students to talk to adults in the building if there’s something that makes them uncomfortable, which creates the opportunity for dialogue.
Grose acknowledged that conflicting federal and state rules, including those about transgender rights, have put schools in a difficult position.
“We are doing our best to interpret, with the help of our attorneys, how to best proceed, knowing that there’s still work to be done in the courts around the impact of federal rulings and orders on state law,” he said.
Albrecht and Deal both have had organizations approach them offering legal support. But both said they don’t want to make a bigger issue out of the incident than necessary.
“If they stop and delete her [picture] and don't ever share it again we're just gonna be as we are happy and live our lives but [if] they wanna continue I will go the legal route to protect her,” Deal wrote.
“If it came down to it, if I were to pursue a lawsuit, the only people that are going to be harmed in the situation are the students and the taxpayers,” Albrecht said. “ ... That’s not even why it was ever brought up.”
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