A father’s coaching duties with the Vermont school soccer team were terminated after he defended his 14-year-old daughter’s discomfort with a biological male using the locker room while she was changing, the Daily Signal reported.
In a statement released Tuesday, Orange Southwest School District Superintendent Layne Millington announced that Travis Allen, the girls’ soccer coach at Randolph Union Middle School, had been suspended without pay.
Allen wrote on his Facebook, “I am the father of the girl you claim ‘made up a story for attention.’ The truth is your son watched my daughter and multiple other girls change in the locker room. While he got a free show, they got violated.”
The father added: “You think this is fine and dandy. I wonder how you would feel if I watched you undress?”
School district superintendent Millington stated in the letter that Allen was suspended for using a male pronoun to refer to the transgender student, saying, “He misgendered a transgender student in our district.”
The Daily Signal reported:
Allen’s daughter Blake is one of several young ladies who said they were in the Randolph Union High School locker room changing when the trans-identifying student, a biological male, entered the locker room.
Several girls who spoke with The Daily Signal said they asked the student to leave, but that the student did not immediately do so. The girls said that the student stood in the corner and looked at them while they were changing, causing them to feel uncomfortable.
In a Facebook comment, Blake’s mother, Jessica Allen, told the trans-identifying student’s guardian, Melissa Sivvy, that she would be “GLAD to have a conversation” on “this matter.” Sivvy, who has told The Daily Signal that her child is a girl and deserves to be in girls’ spaces, had asked for “justice for whoever was wronged” in a Facebook comment.
Allen told school officials that he called the biologically male student a “he” on purpose, Millington said in his letter, adding: “Such conduct is unprofessional and unbecoming, and flies in the face of the Vermont Principal Association’s athletic regulations, Vermont State regulations, and the RUHS Middle-High School expectations.”
Millington wrote that school officials have “significant concerns” about Allen’s ability to “support all of our students as the law requires.”
Allen offered to avoid using gender pronouns while communicating with trans-identifying students and to take down his social media post. But the school district demanded a public apology from Allen, which he refused, resulting in his suspension.
“The public apology was how I could keep my position and continue to coach at the school,” Allen said, describing himself as “pretty upset” by the entire sequence of events. The father of four said that he has coached his children for the past 12 years as a way of being involved in their lives and teaching them life lessons.
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