When we imagine our children being put in harm’s way by irresponsible bathroom policies that accommodate the desires of a few and ignore the safety of many, we tend to focus our attention on adult bathrooms.
For one Georgia mom, however, she likely never imagined her daughter would be assaulted by another child.
When Pascha Thomas’ five-year-old daughter came home complaining of pain, Thomas was horrified to hear her daughter’s account of being sexually assaulted by another student.
“When I dropped my child off at school, I never would think that she would be sexually assaulted in a bathroom by another little boy,” Thomas said in an interview produced by Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal nonprofit representing her.
Thomas says her daughter got permission to leave class to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t long before a male classmate allegedly walked in.
“She was pulling up her pants when one of her classmates came into the bathroom – a little boy. She tried to leave out of the bathroom. The little boy pushed her against the bathroom stall, basically pinned her up against there. She asked him to stop, he wouldn’t,” Thomas said, describing the sexual assault that happened next.
“She asked him to stop and stated several times that it hurt. He refused. Once he was done she went to class,” she explained.
The little boy is a biological male who identifies as a female. He is allowed to use the girls’ bathroom due to a district policy.
When Thomas contacted school administrators, however, she says they did nothing.
“I told the principal that I was demanding that the little boy be taken out the classroom. At that point she refused and said she would not take him out the classroom,” she says.
Stunningly, as the ADF explains, they “retaliated against the student’s parent for reporting the sexual harassment” and identified Thomas as the “responsible party” in their referral of the incident to the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services.
“We are aware of the unfounded allegations made by the Alliance Defending Freedom,” The District Superintendent, David Dude, told CBN in a statement. “We fully disagree with their characterization of the situation and are addressing it with the Office of Civil Rights.”
The school district has yet to change the bathroom policy.
