RIVERSIDE, California (LifeSiteNews) – A high school senior and parents voiced their concerns late last month about videos of fights on campus involving a gender-confused student.
At an April 27 school board meeting, Megan Simpkins, a senior at Martin Luther King (MLK) High School in the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) in California, expressed concern over a gender-confused student being allowed in the girls’ bathroom and locker room after video emerged online of the student getting involved in at least two fights.
Simpkins’ remarks were made after a statement from the board indicated that the student in question no longer attends the high school, and that it has been “working to ensure the safety and rights of all students.”
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and only ladies and gentlemen it is and shall always be,” Simpkins began. “I am an 18-year-old high school student and wanted to take this time to bring to your attention the current issue with biological men claiming they are women and, in turn, truly believing that they are entitled to use women’s spaces.”
“There was an incident within our district that occurred recently regarding a transgender woman — who really is a biological man — having an altercation with a young woman at MLK High School,” she continued. “It was infuriating when I had seen the video on social media, but what was detrimental to this is the fact that this man is, and has been using, the women’s restroom and locker room.”
Simpkins continued, asking the school board a series of questions related to gender theory, garnering applause from those around her.
“Why are we affirming the mental confusion of this boy and putting the safety of women in jeopardy by allowing mentally confused men to use the women’s spaces?” Simpkins asked the board. “What about the women? What about the true girls like myself who are female down to our DNA? Why don’t we ever get a say in whether or not we are comfortable with this? The truth is, we aren’t. The majority of us aren’t, and yet nothing has been done to protect the safety of these women.”
“I will conclude with this: It all starts with you,” Simpkins told the board. “You are in charge of the safety of us women and the kids of our parents. So please do something about it. Thank you.”
Parents present at the meeting voiced similar views to those expressed by Simpkins.
One father told the board: “Put yourselves in the same situation. Would you guys want your daughters getting beat down by a guy?” “If anything happens to my daughter and the people in the uniforms come after me because I take care of a guy, now I’m in jail because of the bad things you guys allow happen,” he continued.
Lori Lopez, a mother of a student, told the district that the gender-confused student had been involved with three or four incidents with teenage girls while at school, and that the board should have listened to prior complaints made about him.
“As a mom, I want to know what specific measures are being put in place to assure safety,” she said. “When is enough, enough. You had … staff thrown to the ground, tackling somebody putting their body physically in the way to protect a female student. It’s just — it’s mind-boggling.”
She also responded to the district’s remarks that a California law removing suspension from students for willful defiance and noted that she was accused of “transphobia” for complaining about the gender-confused student at a previous meeting and of “misgendering” the student.
“I would like to say that because you and I disagree on ideology it does not make me transphobic because I speak up on behalf of girls,” Lopez told the board. “This is just misguided. And I’m going to tell you that I’ve had enough of this. There’s no reason that my 14-year-old daughter has less rights today than I had when I was a child.”
Other students and parents, speaking to FOX11, said that the gender-confused student had a history of erratic behavior. MLK student Aiden Vermeir, speaking to the outlet, said, “He’s [in the] girls’ locker room, using girls’ restrooms … He spit on my friends that are girls, females. He shows his genitals in the locker room.”
Last month, two videos surfaced on social media of the gender-confused student getting involved with fights with biological girls at school. One, shot in early April, showed a boy and girl pushing each other, with the boy hitting the girl, The Epoch Times reported. The other, shot on April 24, showed the gender-confused student fighting with several other students.
Asked for comment by Crisis in the Classroom, an organization that covers parental issues, an RUSD spokesperson said that no further comment would be made about the gender-confused student in an effort to protect student privacy rights.
The meeting took place amid a series of bills that require that gender-confused students and adults use bathrooms and locker rooms in accord with their biological sex.
Last month, North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed a bill that requires people at public colleges and correction facilities in the state to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and public showers in accord with their biological sex.
Similar legislation affecting public schools have been signed by the governors of Arkansas, Iowa, and Idaho. Late last month, the Kansas legislature overrode far-left Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill mandating that people use bathrooms and locker rooms in accord with their biological gender.