The Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) in California hosted a board meeting on Thursday amid a controversy about a transgender cross-country skier at Martin Luther King High School and students being reprimanded for protesting the athlete’s participation.
The board meeting will address recent allegations in a lawsuit in which school administrators compared “Save Girls’ Sports” T-shirts to swastikas.
Protesters gathered outside the RUSD district office, advocating for and against transgender inclusion.
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Video footage of the rally, provided by parents to California Family Outreach Director Sophia Lorey, showed a crowd of people raising the transgender pride flag and wearing shirts of similar colors.
Lorey told Fox News Digital that there were a few people outside the venue wearing the “Save Girls’ Sports” T-shirts, but they were outnumbered by pro-transgender activists.
The California Family Council held a meeting along with the religious rights law firm Advocates for Faith and Freedom press conference outside the district office prior to the board meeting discussing the ongoing controversy.
Ryan Starks, the father of a girl at the school named Taylor who is involved in a lawsuit against the school, spoke at the news conference. The lawsuit alleges that Taylor lost her varsity spot to a transgender athlete and that her T-shirt expressing her opposition to the competing athlete was compared to a swastika.
“It’s just heartbreaking to see what my daughter has been through this season,” Starks said.
“This is unfair. This is completely unfair. It breaks my heart as a father to see my daughter going through this and seeing it taken away from her, her coming up to me and just hugging me. And there’s nothing I can do.” So it’s just heartbreaking.”
An attorney representing Taylor in the lawsuit, Julianne Fleischer, previously told Fox News Digital that school administrators’ rhetoric is “incredibly dangerous.”
“If you have adults comparing the ‘Save Girls’ Sports’ message that promotes equality, fairness and common sense – if you have adults comparing that message to a swastika, which represents the genocide of millions of Jews, then there are actually no I I don’t know how you respond to that,” Fleischer said.
Hundreds of students at Martin Luther King High School began wearing the T-shirts every Wednesday. The school responded by introducing a dress code, resulting in many of these students being taken into custody. But that didn’t stop them. The students continued to wear the shirts weekly.
The school recently stopped enforcing the dress code for the shirts.
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Sources have told Fox News that officials at nearby Arlington High School, Riverside Polytechnical High School and Romona High School have also seen students wearing them.
In a statement previously provided to Fox News Digital, RUSD said it allowed the transgender athlete to compete on the team because it must comply with California state law.
Students at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, wear T-shirts that read “Save Girls’ Sports” to protest a transgender athlete on the cross country team. (Courtesy of Sophia Lorey)
“It is important to remember that RUSD is required to follow California law, which requires that students be ‘permitted to participate in single-sex school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions consistent with his or her gender identity, regardless of gender’. stated in the student’s records,” the statement said.
“While these cases play out in our courts and the media, opposition and protests must be focused on those in a position to influence these laws and policies, including officials in Washington, DC and Sacramento.”
California has had laws in place since 2014 to protect transgender athletes in women’s sports. AB 1266 went into effectGive California students at the scholastic and collegiate levels the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and to use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, regardless of the gender identified in the data of the student is listed. “
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