Fairfax schools accused of allowing biological male student into girls' locker room who allegedly watched them change: Title IX complaint

Fairfax County School District superintendent Michelle Reid has closed an investigation into a male student accused of entering a girls' locker room and watching the girls change as resolved, according to a report from the Fairfax County Times. A Title IX complaint has been filed accusing Fairfax County School District of dismissing the concerns of female students who said that there was a biological male classmate with facial hair in the girls' locker room. The girls alleged that the student would stand there and watch them change.

Fairfax County School District may face a possible Title IX violation after freshman girls at West Springfield High School have alleged they were told to just change quicker by administrators in order to accommodate the sophomore biological male student who they said was gawking at them, a complaint stated. 

The teenage boy, who the school said identifies as a girl, has also been using the boys' locker room as well as the boys' bathroom at the school. The complaint stated that on September 2, a 14-year-old girl "entered the girls’ locker room and changed into gym clothes in preparation for her physical-education (“P.E.”) class. As she was leaving the locker room [the girl] encountered a male student (who has facial hair and was wearing pants that were so tight they clearly outlined his genitalia) standing inside the girls’ locker room and watching the girls preparing for P.E. class."

The girl went and told a teacher, who said "there was nothing that teacher could do about the boy’s intruding into the private facility reserved for females and watching girls as they changed," per the complaint.

When the girl's parents contacted administrators, they were told that the high school "would provide a solution that would allow her daughter not to change in the presence of a boy in the girls’ locker room before she attended P.E. class the following week." However, the complaint alleged, there was no real solution for days.

On September 22, the complaint stated, the high school staff "cut short the amount of time the freshman girls ... could spend changing in the girls’ locker room before P.E. class for the purpose of allowing the boy to use the locker room after them without being in their presence."

However, after that, the biological male sophomore would be able to change in the girls' locker room with girls in the same grade.

“After this episode, WSHS administrators called [the girl’s mother] to inform her that the boy has a right to use the girls’ locker room because he identifies as female,” the complaint stated.

“School staff are aware of the situation and have been addressing the concerns by working with the students and their respective families,” a Fairfax County School District spokesperson told the New York Post. "Because this involves FCPS students, and to honor our student confidentiality obligations under state and federal law, we are not able to comment further at this time."