Conservative School Board Will Pay Thousands to Install Windows in Gender-Neutral Bathrooms

A school district in Pennsylvania will pay close to $10,000 to install windows in gender-inclusive bathrooms in one middle school, which will let people look inside the bathrooms from the hallways, the district board announced this week. Pennsylvania's South Western School District board president, Matt Gelazela, said in a statement that the windows will be added to some Markle Middle School bathrooms "to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism."

But these windows will only be added to gender-neutral bathrooms, prompting parents and LGBTQ advocates to label it discriminatory. Others see it as a privacy infringement meant to discourage students from using gender-inclusive restrooms altogether and target LGBTQ students in particular.

Jennifer Holahan, a parent of a student in the school district, told WGAL-TV, “I can understand needing to have supervision over middle school and high school kids, especially in the bathroom. ... But I also think windows aren’t the solution. I think if it was a real issue, it wouldn’t just be the gender-inclusive restrooms.”

The board clarified that it would “create openings” that maintain “privacy in the toilet area" and only “increase oversight of the wash area.” Gelazela said these windows, which will cost $8,700 to install, are the standard in the district's elementary schools.

All of this is incredibly weird, and whatever spin Gelazela tries to spew, the installation of the windows only in some bathrooms is meant to target and bully LGBTQ youth. According to HuffPost, one of Gelazela's first actions as school board president after being appointed in December 2023 was to remove gender identity from the district's sexual harassment policy and affirm a narrow definition of sex that erased trans and intersex people. Earlier this year, the South Western School District board rolled out a new policy to permit teachers and faculty to refuse to use a student’s name or pronouns or otherwise use “language inconsistent with their beliefs.” In March, the school board entered into a contract with Independence Law Center—a Christian law firm that's worked with other school boards across the country to prevent trans kids from participating in sports, among other anti-LGBTQ measures—to craft and enforce these policies.

“Schools should be a welcoming and safe environment that nurture students’ curiosity and well-being,” a spokesperson from the ACLU of Pennsylvania told NBC News. “Discriminatory policies like this one not only undermine those goals, they also make students less safe.”

The new bathroom policy at Markle Middle School comes amid rising threats and attacks aimed at queer and trans youth, particularly at the local and state level. According to the Movement Advancement Project, a pro-LGBTQ think tank, 13 states have laws that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity in K-12 schools. In the last couple of years, anti-LGBTQ book bans, laws to prohibit queer identity from being taught or referenced in schools, invasive laws banning trans kids from school sports, and other policies to marginalize and endanger queer youth have spread like a rash across the country.