Tensions Rise at School District 211 Meeting Over Transgender Volleyball Player at Conant High School

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (WLS) — Suburban residents voiced their concerns at a meeting Wednesday night after a transgender student made the girls’ volleyball team.

The transgender student in question attends Conant High School and reportedly is no longer on the girls’ volleyball team, but that didn’t stop a large crowd of people from offering opinions on the subject at the board meeting.

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“You are infringing on the rights of all those girls to their private protected spaces,” D211 parent Angela Christman said.

Transgender athletes participating in girls’ sports is clearly a hot-button issue. A volleyball athlete at Conant High School in the Schaumburg-Hoffman Estates area prompted an outpouring from those who oppose allowing the athlete to play, and those who believe they should be allowed to play.

Kevin Morrison is the first openly-gay Cook County commissioner and happens to be a graduate of Conant High School. He says he’s been told the athlete has left the team.

“We are speaking about children, and it is so harmful when we dehumanize their individual identities,” Morrison said.

A large group of speakers opposed to the transgender athlete participating was organized by a group called citizens for kids’ education. In general, they align with President Donald Trump’s executive order earlier this year called keeping men out of women’s sports.

“If biological gender didn’t matter in bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams then we wouldn’t have a separation of those things now,” Christman said. “Everyone would just use the same bathroom or locker room.”

A spokesperson for School District 211 issued a statement regarding the comments from the board meeting, saying “Information regarding individual students and coaches is confidential. District 211 supports students’ access to District athletic opportunities consistent with Board policy.”

Some transgender rights supporters say they support that policy.

“It’s important that when a kid wants to participate there are community members that have their back, not trying to attack these kids for their own political gains,” said Justin O’Rourke with the Community Mental Health Project.

There is no pending vote before the school board about transgender athletes in the district. Nevertheless, the board encouraged anyone who’d like to speak on the topic to come the next meeting next month.