In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews, Jameson Taylor, who serves as director of policy and government affairs for the American Family Association, unpacked the potentially long-term damage that could be inflicted by school policies that allow biological males to use girls’ bathrooms and facilities.
Taylor believes, for example, that such policies are causing young women to develop an “increasing anxiety about the bathroom being a safe place.”
“So even if there are only a handful of cases” of sexual assault by transgender males “that are verified,” said Taylor, “there has been a shift in our culture, and I think in the culture of our schools,” in which “Basically women decide, I’m just gonna wait to go to the bathroom until I get home.”
“That could lead potentially to health problems, that could lead potentially to academic problems,” noted Taylor. Such problems could result in long-term physical harm or academic setbacks.
Taylor also highlighted what he called school transgender policies’ “chilling” effect on the participation of girls in sports, not only because biological males may want to use their locker and shower facilities, but also because they may accompany them on overnight trips for sports competitions.
“Again, I think there’s a chilling effect, [because] some girls are not going to even sign up for the softball team anymore, because they just don’t want to have to deal with this violation of their privacy and safety,” Taylor told LifeSiteNews.
He noted that although information on sexual assault of girls in school bathrooms is difficult to obtain because the girls are minors, anecdotal reports indicate “that this is a problem.”
In fact, as he pointed out in a piece for Townhall published Friday, Rep. Scott Stadthagen, sponsor of Alabama’s “bathroom bill,” HB 322, “warned that in his research, cases of girls getting raped in school bathrooms are ‘literally spread out throughout the entire state.’ I have heard similar reports in my home state of Mississippi.
He further shared, “Legislators tell me their school superintendents are privately begging for statewide protections because they are worried about the safety of their students. They are also afraid of getting sued if the state does not have a clear policy regarding multiple occupancy bathrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities. Both concerns are well-founded.”
According to Taylor, the objections to HB 322 in Alabama’s state legislature essentially boiled down to claims that such a policy will hurt the feelings of a “transgender” child or cause them to feel “bullied.”
“But feeling bullied is not the same as actually being bullied. Being asked to respect the privacy rights of other students by using a single occupancy bathroom, instead of a shared restroom or locker facility, is not bullying,” he noted in his Townhall editorial.
Taylor acknowledged to LifeSiteNews, “We have to have a balancing of privacy and safety rights for all students in public schools … but in that balancing we have to be careful that we’re not empowering so-called victims to become bullies.”
“Making demands that violate the privacy and safety rights of other students is a form of actual bullying that will cause suffering and anxiety for many other students,” he added.
Such a willingness to sacrifice the welfare of girls is, Taylor suggested, an indication that there is “an ulterior motive from the left to indoctrinate children at a very young age into this lifestyle.”
Taylor thanks Eagle Forum for taking the lead in helping to pass the Alabama legislation protecting our youth.
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