Colorado Springs school district repeals policy targeting transgender students

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Colorado Springs District 49 Board of Education voted Tuesday night to repeal policy JBAA, which required students to use the bathroom associated with their biological sex. 

School board members repealed the policy in a 3-2 vote. Holly Withers provided the final vote to repeal the policy. Withers replaced former school board member Jamilynn D’Avola — who voted in favor of the policy last fall — after last year’s school board elections. 

Board members Deb Schmidt and Lori Thompson, who also voted for JBAA last fall, stalled the voting process in an attempt to keep the policy in place. Schmidt accused board member Marie La Vere-Wright, who voted in favor of the repeal, of not following correct procedures. 

“We are approaching it in the same exact manner in which it was brought forward,” Le Vere-Wright, who voted against JBAA last fall, said during the meeting. 

Originally passed last September, JBAA was never implemented because the school board did not finalize a resolution on how to track students and the bathrooms they used. 

The repeal strays from a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ policies school boards in Colorado Springs have recently passed. Last spring, D49 was the first school district in the state to ban transgender athletes from sports. District 11 removed pages in a health text book with information about gender and sexuality and banned LGBTQ+ pride flags last year.

A 30-minute public comment period preceded Tuesday night’s vote. 

“It’s difficult to fully convey the toll the relentless, coordinated attacks on transgender people and families like mine have taken on us,” Lindsey Lee, a D49 parent, said during public comment. “Those attacks… are not abstract. They land in our homes, on our kids and in our daily lives.” 

Most of the public comments supported repealing the bathroom policy. Those in favor of keeping the policy cited concern for the D49’s cisgender female students safety, but did not provide any examples of transgender students harming cisgender students.