PALM COAST — Flagler County School Board members Tuesday night voted 4-1 against adding the term "gender identity" to the district’s anti-discrimination policies.

The policies prohibit intolerance on the basis of race, religion, gender, age, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, disability, ethnicity, nationality, political beliefs or genetics.

Local LGBTQ-rights advocates wanted to add the words "gender identity" to the sub-section as an "added layer of protection," specifically for transgender students in the school district.

But calling the anti-discrimination bylaws a global policy that already protects all students, school board members balked at explicitly making transgenders a protected class. Board member Colleen Conklin was the only member to support the change.

"The thought that a change in wording in a policy that blankets everyone would change anything … I think it’s moot," School Board Chairwoman Janet McDonald said. "I have to agree with some of the other board members that the procedures and operations are where we make change."

The school board did vote unanimously to beef up language in its anti-discrimination codes for filing discrimination, sexual harassment and other harassment complaints. That procedural tweak outlines a path for victims to have their complaints reconsidered if they don’t believe they’re adequately resolved by human resources officials.

Tuesday’s vote on the transgender issue was the latest chapter in a tense back-and-forth that began late last year; one that has yielded impassioned pleas on both sides of the argument.

The saga began in 2018 when Elliot Bertrand, a transgender student born female, began identifying as a boy. He asked staff and teachers at Matanzas High School to refer to him by his male name and pronouns. But one teacher at the school refused to recognize the teen as such.

Bertrand confided to his father, Randy, last year that the teacher outed him to classmates and gave him an anxiety attack. Matanzas school administrators launched an investigation but found no witnesses who could not corroborate many of Elliot Bertrand’s allegations. The teacher kept his job and Elliot Bertrand transferred to Flagler Palm Coast High School in August.

Since then, Randy Bertrand and his wife Jennifer have rallied support for a safer learning environment to for Flagler County’s transgender students. Their fight came to light in November, the first time they petitioned the school board to make the policy change.

"My son was called mentally ill and a confused girl and the board did nothing to protect him from this assault," Randy Bertrand wrote in a statement read during Tuesday’s virtual meeting. "Be a human and protect transgender kids’ rights to a free public education absent of discrimination."

The Bertrands also addressed the school board in December, January and February. All three times, they faced pushback from the Rev. Charlene Cothrane of The Evidence Ministries Inc., affiliated with Zion Baptist Church in Palm Coast. The self-avowed ex-lesbian and anti-LGBTQ activist has also addressed the school board on multiple occasions. She told them she doesn’t believe in the idea of transgender students and has suggested many teens grow out of their gender identity issues during early adulthood.

"Don’t allow yourselves to be lied to," she said during a Feb. 18 board meeting.

Cothrane did not submit a statement to be read Tuesday. Several parents and teachers spoke out in favor of the policy change to protect transgender students from taunts and bullying.

Kristin Dunham said she’s raising a 14-year-old former-FPC student who’s transitioning from a girl to a boy.

"My son will eventually be returning to FPC," Dunham said. "He left as a female; he will be returning as a male. He is one of a number of incredibly brave kids in Flagler – braver than any one of us can ever be. He deserves it; she deserves it; they deserve it."

Conklin sought to convince her counterparts to consider adding the language, although she acknowledged she was trying to pull off a "Hail Mary." She said she’d educated herself on the issue and changed her position. Conklin had advocated against the need for a policy shift.

But she walked the board members through her change of heart and conceded that her understanding of the term gender was "fairly simplistic." She also admitted she was wrong in the past when she argued that gender dysphoria was not a diagnosable disorder. The condition is a diagnosis for people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with, according to the American Psychiatric Association. It’s recognized in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

"With that deeper understanding, it actually forced me to beg the question whether or not our current policy actually does provide the appropriate protections for students," Conklin said.

School district administrators proposed a draft of the anti-discrimination policy that only included the new language for filing complaints. But a draft with input from citizens included the protections for gender identity.

When Conklin motioned for the board to approve that version, it died for lack of a second.

Board member Andy Dance said the current language already covered all students and such a shift should instead be in the district’s procedures, guidelines and training.

"We show compassion in how we support our students with our actions," he said. "I think the next step is having best practices put together that we all agree on with input from the community. I think that’s where we are lacking. I don’t think that adding gender identity to the policy is that layer of extra protection. It’s in our procedures, how we as a district are unified in that message, and in our protections and compassion for the students."