Quirk-Silva Explains Vote on Transgender Bill

SQS 65.jpgState Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva said she voted for a controversial bill last week because it “will clarify the legal obligation schools have to give transgendered students equal opportunity at schools.”

AB 1266 would allow transgender students to take part in school sports and other sex-segregated activities, and use sex-segregated facilities “consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.” The bill passed the Assembly 45-24 along party lines May 9, and will return to the Assembly for a final vote after a state Senate review.  

“Current law already prohibits discrimination on gender, but some districts don’t recognize transgendered students,” Quirk-Silva said Monday in a phone interview. “For those highly opposed to this for whatever reason, there are processes I’m sure they can go through to address it,” Quirk-Silva said.

Local author David Jerome, the father of two children in the Fullerton School District, is one constituent who strongly opposes the bill.

“When I saw that Sharon had voted for AB 1266, I found it disgusting that she, as a parent and a teacher, would potentially sacrifice the innocence and safety of every CA school kid to please one Democrat special-interest group,” Jerome said in an email while vacationing with his family. 

“As Sharon said, there is already ‘harassment’ legislation to protect transgender kids on the books, and then it's dealt with on a case-by-case basis in an affected district,” he said. “Her point adds to my belief that 1266 is an unnecessary bill.”

Quirk-Silva said the bill’s opponents are presenting “the worst-case scenarios: that there would be many students that would use this as an excuse to go into the bathrooms of the other sex.” 

“Districts have a lot of flexibility,” she said. “I think it’s something at the local level each individual school should set some sort of oversight, and that all genders will be put in safe scenarios,” she said. 

Quirk-Silva said she struggled with how to vote. “It is uncomfortable, and it isn’t easy.  And it’s not something I take lightly,” she said. “If I get feedback on it from my constituents, I am certainly open to voting differently,” she said. 

-- Reported by Davis Barber/FullertonStories.com