In November 2024, Anna Larson’s* 15-year-old daughter told her that a man was in the girls’ restroom with her at school that day.

Larson, a North Carolina mother of two daughters attending A.C. Reynolds High School, decided to take the issue to her school board, speaking out at a meeting in December 2024. The principal contacted her after the meeting, Larson said, and voiced support for her efforts to reverse school policy regarding transgender-identified males in girls-only spaces. 

Nevertheless, Larson was told that her daughters, and any other girl who was uncomfortable with men in the girls-only bathrooms, should use a single-stall facility on the other side of the school. 

“There’s one single-stall bathroom in the back hallway that they could use, but we come to find out this one additional bathroom is locked,” Larson said. “The girls would have to get the key from the choral instructor to be able to go in there and go to the bathroom, and there’s no way they could make it to class. I mean, there’s just absolutely no way that they could get the key, go to the bathroom, return the key, and get to class. It’s just a ridiculous ‘accommodation.’”

Even school administrators who are sympathetic to the plight of the girls forced to share bathrooms with men have their hands tied due to the district’s “gender support guidelines.” The guidelines for Buncombe County Schools, which A.C. Reynolds High School is a part of, describe discrimination as “either intentional or unintentional” and posit that, “transgender and gender nonconforming students have the ability, as do all students, to discuss and express their gender identity and expression.” 

The guidelines also note that in cases where a transgender-identified student’s parents are not supportive of their child’s identity, “the school principal or their designee should speak with the student first to ascertain concerns the student may have.”

Specifically, the guidelines state that students who identify as transgender “may not be required to use a facility that conflicts with the student’s gender identity.” When trans-identified students “express a need or desire for increased privacy,” the guidelines stipulate “alternative arrangements [that] may include a single occupancy restroom, use of a private area, or a separate changing schedule.” 

No such accommodations are listed for the rest of the student body, or for girls who may feel uncomfortable with the presence of a male using a women’s restroom. 

In April 2024, the Biden administration redefined the definition of “sex” in Title IX to essentially federally protect male transgender-identified students using women’s bathrooms. Less than a year later, the Trump administration reversed this decision, and the Department of Education affirmed “the biological reality of two sexes.” In other words, taxpayer-funded schools may not allow male students to use female restrooms.

“After Trump was sworn in, and Title IX was reversed from [Biden’s 2024 rewrite that redefined Title IX] to the 2020 version,” Larson said, “I sent an email to all school board members, saying, basically, your gender support guidelines are in violation of the 2020 Title IX.”

“I asked for confirmation that everyone received the email, and they did, but there was no change in policy based on that,” Larson continued. “I also met with the superintendent again… I prepared an entire letter for him, citing examples, and he sat there and diligently took notes.”

But Larson has yet to see a change in policy at her daughters’ school. She hopes that the state General Assembly will secure the votes needed to override Democratic Governor Josh Stein’s veto of House Bill 805, which would reaffirm definitions of biological sex in the current Title IX rules, as well as address grey areas in the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. House 805 specifically recognizes only two sexes, defining them as consistent with a child’s sex on their birth certificate, mandating that taxpayer-funded school facilities are operated under said definitions. 

IW Features reached out to Ken Ulmer, the Chief Communications Officer of Buncombe County Schools, for comment, who said, “The safety and well-being of our students is our top priority. We encourage students and families to report any issues, and educate them on various ways to do so, including using the Say Something reporting app.”

He added: “Our school administrators take all reported concerns seriously and work diligently to investigate them. While we cannot comment on specific student situations due to privacy laws, our staff strives to balance the rights, safety, and dignity of all students in accordance with state and federal guidelines.”

At A.C. Reynolds High School, Larson says that the transgender-identified boys using the girls’ bathroom would use the facility to “hang out and chit chat,” which meant that her daughters had almost no time where they could comfortably use the main girls’ bathroom. But the girls at the school are simply expected to be fine with that fact.

“The young women in the school, many of them, are just so conditioned, they’re expected to be okay with it, even though they’re wildly uncomfortable with it. It has been clearly communicated by the leadership, the administrators, the teachers that you’re supposed to be able to trust that this is an explanation, and if you don’t, you’re somehow prejudiced or discriminatory.”

*The name of this storyteller has been changed to protect her identity.