Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #604

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Bathrooms With A View: Cutting Windows Into Student Restrooms Is A New Level Of Weird
At the risk of stating the obvious, South Western’s elected school board is mak- ing some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bath- rooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — end- ing up with five differ- ent types of bath- rooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far- right members joined
their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin ban- ning books and reopened the bath- room issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serv- ing as the board’s most vocal bomb- thrower, pointed
to Red Lion’s discrim- inatory policies as something to aspire to.
Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut win- dows so passersby can look into the so-
called “gender-identi- ty” student bath- rooms.
Yes, you read that correctly.
These adults want to make it easier for other people to watch your children while they’re in the bath- room. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.
Gelazela, who’s steadfastly refused to explain the logic here, said in a public meet- ing that the windows help “[add] privacy in the toilet facility” and that they “increase oversight of the wash area.”
There’s a reason pub-
lic restrooms tend not to have windows — or, if they do, they have frosted glass.
No one wants to be spied on when they’re relieving themselves.
Gelazela, in pursuing his book ban, repeat- edly said he’s trying to protect the chil- dren.
But this latest deci- sion does just the opposite.
The parents who spoke to The York Dispatch about the latest bathroom reno- vations said their chil- dren no longer feel comfortable using these bathrooms. One of the parents went to the principal and asked for an exemption to allow her son to use a dif- ferent bathroom fur- ther away from class.
Her 13-year-old does- n’t want to be spied on while he’s in the bathroom.
And we don’t blame him. It’s creepy
and weird.
And let’s not ignore the bigger picture: This is happening at
a time when this and other York County school boards are pushing policies that would restrict what books students read, what sports teams they compete on and even which pronouns they use.
All of this is part of an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people.
Cutting a window into these bathrooms is an intimidation tactic designed to make sure students who use the so-called “gender-identity” facil- ities — and, let’s be honest, any student who doesn’t fit neatly into the worldview of the school board’s far-right majority — know they’re being watched, controlled and judged.
In their quest to pun- ish LGBTQ+ kids, however, the misguid- ed “adults” on this South Western School Board are doing the things they accuse others of doing.
This is an invasion of privacy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
It needs to stop.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine