An 11-year-old girl was assigned to share a bed with a male student who believes he is “transgender” on a “cross-country” school trip, according to a report from The Daily Signal. The girl’s parents were not notified of the arrangement and found out the night of the trip.
Reportedly, the girl’s parents, Joe and Serena Wailes, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). sent a demand letter to the Jefferson County School Board in Colorado and Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Tracy Dorland regarding the situation.
In the demand letter to the school board and the superintendent, the parents inquire “whether JCPS will continue this practice of intentionally withholding information about rooming accommodations from parents like the Waileses, who object to their children rooming with a student of the opposite sex, regardless of the other student’s gender identity.”
“This practice renders it impossible for these parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, upbringing, and participation in school-sponsored programs,” it continued, asking for the ability to “opt-out” of the rooming policy for upcoming school-sponsored trips.
According to the letter, the trip where the incident occurred was in June 2023 to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Ahead of the trip, parents were reportedly told that boys and girls would be rooming on different floors and that boys and girls would not be allowed to visit each other’s floors. Serena Wailes was on the trip.
Joe and Serena Wailes’ daughter, “D.W.,” was assigned a room with three other students. Two of them were girls, while the other was a boy who identified as a girl who attended a different school. He is identified as “K.E.M.” in the demand letter.
D.W. and K.E.M. were assigned to share a bed. He later revealed to D.W. and the other roommates that he is a boy who identifies as a girl.
In an interview with the Signal, Serena Wailes said: “We were definitely not aware of that before we went on the trip.” She added that her daughter was “terrified and really upset about the idea of sharing a bed with a biological boy—even though she had a good relationship with this other student.”
“I was really upset,” Serena Wailes told The Daily Signal. “One, I was really upset that she was put in that situation at 11 years old—I don’t feel that is fair to put kids in that kind of situation—and two, that we were not even given the information that this was a possibility before the trip. The whole time they’re saying, ‘Girls on one floor, boys on another, they’re not going to be in each other’s rooms unless it is pre-approved.’ So we’re going through this whole process, not even recognizing that this is a possibility.”
Chaperones called one of the trip leaders, school Principal Ryan Lucas, who phoned the boy’s parents. K.E.M.’s parent’s “confirmed their child’s transgender gender identity,” according to the letter. The parents explained that their son was to be in “stealth mode,” meaning that “students on the trip would not know about their child’s transgender status.”
Chaperones eventually agreed to move the male student to another room.
“Throughout the entire evening, K.E.M.’s privacy and feelings were always the primary concern of JCPS employees,” the letter said. “After JCPS disregarded D.W.’s privacy and the Waileses’ parental rights, JCPS then silenced D.W., thus infringing on her freedom of speech, when a JCPS teacher told the three girls that they were not allowed to tell anyone that K.E.M. was transgender, even though K.E.M. voluntarily chose to share this information.”
In an interview on Fox News, Serena Wailes said: “We love our principal, we love our school, we love our teachers. But, what we don’t love is this district policy that doesn’t allow all students to feel comfortable, secure and protected and it doesn’t allow all parents to protect their children and guide them the best way they see fit. That’s what we thought was lacking on this trip.”
“We do feel like it’s a story that needs to be told,” Joe Wailes added. “All kids deserve respect and privacy. But it needs to be applied equally to all children. This policy, the way it is right now, is very one-sided.”
Parents speak out after a school assigned their 11-year-old girl to sleep in the same bed as a boy who identifies as trans on a school trip. pic.twitter.com/r5hp98P5fV
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 6, 2023
