The mother of an Oklahoma high school student is filing a lawsuit after her daughter was allegedly “severely beaten” in the school bathroom by a transgender student.
Theresa Gooden is claiming that her 15-year-old daughter was attacked by a 17-year-old male who identifies as a woman in the bathroom at Edmond Memorial High School last year. According to Gooden, her daughter suffered, “severe physical and mental injuries, severe physical and mental pain and suffering, and severe emotional distress.“
“It wasn’t a regular fight, it was a beatdown,” Gooden said.
According to Oklahoma law, students who identify as transgender are required to use the bathroom that coordinates with the sex on their birth certificate. If the student refuses to adhere to this policy, they must use a single-occupancy restroom.
Gooden’s lawsuit accuses the school of neglecting this law and allowing the male student to use the women’s restroom. The school alleges that they were not aware that this student was a biological male because he had only been attending the school for a few days before this incident occurred. The school also stated that they did not have a birth certificate on file for the student.
Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald commented on why this student did not have a birth certificate with the school and was not perceived to be a biological male. “It’s hard to explain, but if a parent comes in and enrolls their child as a certain gender, and when you look at that child by all social norms they look and present themselves as that gender, it’s not something that you would question,” Grunewald said. “Also in high school, birth certificates are not required to start school. So there was no birth certificate in the (student’s) file at the time to verify one way or another.”
Grunewald clarified that the transgender student is no longer enrolled at Edmond Memorial High School. She also stated that there will be “consequences” for the school’s violation of the state’s bathroom policy.
“We had two policies broken at this time. One, we have a policy against fighting. And we have a policy that our school board enacted in August of this school year that says all students must go to the bathroom of their birth gender, and both of those policies were broken. And both of them have consequences. I can tell you consequences were given for both violations.”
Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald
