We need a theology of getting fired, suspended, kicked out of locker rooms, and refusing to submit to “re-education” efforts. We need a theology of being labeled controversial, and a theology of helping each other through the professional, reputational and personal fallout that comes with that label.
The girls’ volleyball team at a rural Vermont high school was banned from their own locker room when several players reported feeling uncomfortable after a male teammate, who identifies as transgender, was allowed to join them in the locker room and watch them change clothes. When the girls said they’d prefer to not share this private space with a boy, they were told that, by law, they had to.
The school also suspended one of the female volleyball players for allegedly “harassing” her male teammate by calling him a “dude.” The girl’s father, a soccer coach at the school, was suspended without pay for the rest of the season because he called the student a boy on Facebook. After the father and daughter filed a lawsuit on free speech grounds, the school walked back its disciplinary actions against the girl. Her father remains suspended, and her team remains barred from their locker room.
This kind of story isn’t as rare as it used to be. Thanks to the Biden Administration’s creative new interpretation of Title IX, which was meant to protect female athletes, many school officials believe they have to allow boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms if asked to do so. As a result, kids are being put into dangerous situations, like the two girls who were allegedly raped at school in Loudon County, Virginia, last year when a boy who said he was a girl was granted access to the girls’ restroom.
