Advertisement Transgender student files federal lawsuit against Kenosha Unified School District Share Shares Copy Link Copy

A Tremper High School transgender student has filed a federal lawsuit against the Kenosha Unified School District. VIDEO: Transgender high school student files federal suit against Kenosha Unified School Dist. The lawsuit claims Ashton Whitaker, a transgender boy, has been denied access to male-designated restrooms at his high school, subjected to daily surveillance and threatened with disciplinary action if he continued using the boys’ restrooms.The complaint alleges that discriminatory actions, including a proposal that all transgender students be made to wear bright green wristbands in order to monitor their restroom use, school administrators’ insistence on using Whitaker's birth name and female pronouns and the school’s repeated isolation of Whitaker from his peers on overnight school trips, violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution."My peers and many of my teachers know me as a boy, and have been incredibly supportive,” Whitaker said. “But the school administrators have made my life miserable every school day since this spring, when they told me I could no longer use the boys’ restrooms, which I’d been using with the support of my classmates for months. I worry about how I’m going to navigate the demands of senior year if I can’t even go to the bathroom without worrying that I’m being watched."“Transgender youth should have the same opportunity as all other students to go to school and get an education without being singled out for harassment and discrimination by school administrators,” said Transgender Law Center Executive Director Kris Hayashi. “It is past time for schools to get in line with the law and treat all their students, including transgender students like Ash, fairly and equally."A complaint was filed in May with the Department of Education's Civil Rights Division alleging that administrators at Tremper High School were discriminating against Whitaker.WISN 12 News contacted the school district Tuesday night for comment on this lawsuit but have not heard back. In past stories WISN 12 News reporter Christina Palladino has done, the district has said it's working on a policy that meets transgender students' needs.Whitaker will be a senior this year. 9737608