The incidents happened near Potomac Avenue and Laramie Avenue at approximately 1:26 p.m. by an unknown offender, according to police.
A suburban Deerfield mother has filed a complaint with the Justice Department after she said her daughter was forced to change in front of a transgender classmate.
Nicole Georgas said her daughter, who attends Shepard Middle School, was terrified by the incident, and said she also filed a police report.
Georgas alleged that her 13-year-old daughter was forced by an assistant principal and two other teachers to change into her gym uniform in front of a transgender student in the girls’ locker room last month.
“(They said), ‘You have to change, or you are facing disciplinary action,’” she said. “We have audio evidence of that.”
She said her daughter was traumatized by the incident.
“My child completely freaked out,” she said. “Was not having it. She called me, started crying, and ran out of the locker room as fast as she could.”
In a statement, Deerfield Public Schools District 109 said it complies with state law, which “mandates that students must be permitted access to the locker room and bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.”
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The school also said they “ensure that no student is required to change into a gym uniform for physical education class in front of others.”
Georgas also alleged the school’s policy on transgender students violates an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which focuses on preventing transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
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“They’re not adhering to the executive order,” she said. “Our daughter’s privacy is being violated.”
The district said students have “multiple options to change in a private location separate from the locker room,” but Georgas said the other student should be required to use the gender-neutral bathrooms.
“If the child is choosing to change, why wouldn’t that child use the gender-neutral option? All of our children have to suffer,” she said.
Center on Halsted, a Chicago-based advocacy group that works to advance the city’s LGBTQ+ community, said that the incident is a reminder of how “negative and vitriolic stereotypes” can have devastating consequences.
“As an LGBTQ+-serving community center we see firsthand how negative and vitriolic stereotypes and assumptions target our trans community and create overreactions,” the group said in a statement. “We are seeing and will continue to see how rhetoric and misunderstandings are impacting our neighbors and our communities.”
