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The proposed guidelines would restrict pronoun usage, restroom access, and uniform choice.
Some student parents and former officials at a private preparatory academy in Maui have raised concerns that proposed guidelines would effectively ban transgender students, Hawaii News Now reports. If enacted, the Maui Preparatory Academy in Lahaina would use binary pronouns exclusively and base restroom use and uniform choice on students’ gender assigned at birth.
Maui Prep enrolls 310 students attending from preschool through grade 12. If enacted, the new guidelines would go into effect in 2025.
One former school board trustee said she was forced from her position on the board last month for speaking against the proposed guidelines. Dr. Flo Wiger said the board also warned she would be removed from future meetings if she continued to attend.
Wiger told Hawaii News Now that the proposed guidelines get her “upset” and expressed exasperation at how the new rules would be implemented.
“What are we going to do?” Wiger asked. “Have somebody standing at the door checking genitalia?”
Riley Bond, whose two children attend preschool and kindergarten at the academy, told the outlet she was disgusted by the proposed guidelines. She says the guidelines deny the reality of trans kids.
“The issue and the debate is not whether trans kids exist, because they exist,” Bond said. “Not that they need therapy. Not that they’re confused. They exist and they belong, and they are valued members of our community.”
Wiger and Bond both said the board handled the process poorly without reaching out for input from the community. There were also concerns about the potential for retaliation from the school if parents objected too strenuously to the proposed guidelines.
“The unwritten rule is that if the parents are doing disparaging things to the school, the students will be asked not to come back,” Wiger said.
