Transgender Student Suspended Over Bathroom Use

It always seems to come back to the right to pee without issue.  The Advocate reports about a 16 year old high school student recently suspended for three days for using the bathroom appropriate for her gender identity:

Two transgender high school students in Fort Collins, Colo., say they have been forbidden to use student restrooms, and one of them, 16-year-old Dionne Malikowski, just got suspended for doing so. Malikowski, a trans girl, and her friend Kurt Peters, also 16 and a trans guy, say they have been told to use the staff bathrooms at Fort Collins High School. But, Malikowski told reporters, “There’s not staff bathrooms all over the school, so when you really got to pee, you got to pee.

That’s what she says happened about a month ago when she used the women’s restroom, reports W9 News in Colorado. And then she was suspended for three days.

W9 News in Colorado also reports:

“I feel like the school doesn’t really understand what it’s like to be in our situation,” Malikowski said.

“It kind of makes us feel like we’re not welcome,”

The Poudre School District says there is not an across-the-board policy for bathroom use by transgender students.

The Colorado Association of School Boards says there really is no case law on this in Colorado and the association hasn’t provided any guidance to school districts.

They say this issue is an emerging legal one and schools are still working their way through it.

While Safe2Pee.org stated that there are six “transgender safe” bathrooms in the Fort Collins area, none are accessible to students who are on campus.