Students Protest Transgender Teen’s Use of Girls’ Locker Room: What Are Her Rights?

Korin Miller
Yahoo Health

Caitlyn Jenner and other transgender celebrities like Laverne Cox, Candis Cayne, and Chaz Bono have received a large show of public support. But Lila Perry’s situation is not uncommon for transgender people who aren’t in the spotlight. (Photo: AP/Robert Cohen)

A transgender teen in Missouri is at the center of a heated debate about her right to change in her high school’s girls’ locker room.

Nearly 200 students walked out of Hillsboro High School on Monday in a protest that lasted two hours.

Lila Perry, the 17-year-old at the center of the debate, reportedly identified as a gay male until she was 13 and publicly came out as transgender in February. She previously used a gender-neutral faculty bathroom but began changing in the girls’ locker room this school year before her physical education class.

Protesters were divided: One side supported Perry’s right to change in the girls’ locker room; the other wants her to continue to use the gender-neutral bathroom.

“It wasn’t too long ago white people were saying, ‘I don’t feel comfortable sharing a bathroom with a black person,’ and history repeats itself,” Perry told Fox News.

Lila Perry stands outside her school with a group of friends.(Photo: AP/Robert Cohen)

She also assured parents that she is not going to “hurt” their daughters. “I’m not going to expose myself. I’m not a pervert,” she says. “I’m a transgender woman. I’m a girl. I’m just in there to change, do my business, and if they have any questions about being transgender, they are more than welcome to talk to me, and I’ll be happy to explain it.”

Perry says she began using the girls’ locker room because she didn’t want to feel segregated.

But some female students say they’re uncomfortable because, while Perry wears dresses and a wig, she still has male genitalia.

“I find it offensive because Lila has not [gone] through any procedure to become female,” student Sophie Beel told Fox. “Putting on a dress and putting on a wig is not transgender to me.”

Some parents also argue that many are left feeling uncomfortable to accommodate one person. “The girls have rights, and they shouldn’t have to share a bathroom with a boy,” Tammy Sorden, who has a son at the high school, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She added that it’s not right to give Perry special treatment “while the girls just have to suck it up.”