A Nebraska resolution concerning whether schools should be able to decide if transgenders can use the bathroom according to the gender they identify with failed in a 3-3 vote on Friday morning.
The Nebraska Board of Education debated whether to implement a resolution to allow school districts to decide themselves how to handle the transgender bathroom issue or to follow the federal guidelines that open bathrooms to all genders and gender orientations.
The resolution failed with 3 votes for it, 3 against and two absences.
When lawmakers offered to move the resolution to the Policy Committee for further debate, the motion failed as well.
Patrick McPherson, an Omaha board member, wrote the resolution out of the hope that school districts would be allowed to decide for themselves what bathrooms transgender students will use.
He said, “If you have a 12 year-old daughter, do you want her sharing a bathroom with someone of a different sex? I don’t know that you do.”
McPherson also spoke out on what he called “a federal over-reach,” referring to the U.S Department of Education’s warning that if Nebraska does not allow transgenders to use the bathroom they want, they will rescind Nebraska’s federal school funding.
Those who opposed McPherson’s resolution said that it infringes on the rights of transgender students.
JohnCarl Denkovich, a safe space in schools advocate, claimed that many children who have not come out as transgender yet are scared of the bathroom. He referred to a young girl who was too frightened to use the bathroom.
“She just wants to be able to pee in peace and I think most people who are transgender want that for themselves,” said Denkovich.
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