School district defends threatening girls if they object to males in their restroom, risking probe

A Maryland county known nationally for Navy football games is playing a much riskier game with the federal government, flaunting its school district's threat to punish female students who protest males in their restrooms despite the Trump administration's steps to yank federal funding from several districts across the Potomac with the same policies.

Libs of TikTok made viral what Anne Arundel County Public Schools says has been on the books for six years and on "signage" for a year: Students are allowed to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

But it's not clear whether the warnings appear in the boys' restrooms, which if not would single out students for differential treatment based on sex and facially violate Title IX.

"In the girls bathroom at Old Mills HS [high school]," the Libs of TikTok tipster wrote. "I'm told there is not one in the boys bathroom. AACPS refuses to protect our girls."

The sign is specific to Old Mills, and both its words and design – with three rainbow spectra – make clear students who disagree can be subject to discipline for purported bigotry.

Titled "AACPS Bathroom Use Policy," the sign says in all caps "students have the right to use the bathroom that matches their expressed gender identity," without limitation. 

"It is against AACPS policy for an AACPS student to engage in discrimination or harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression," the sign reads. Its motto: "Productive Respectful Inclusive Determined Engaged," with the first letter of each word highlighted to spell the acronym PRIDE.

Threatening to punish students for protesting the opposite sex in their restroom is a ticket to a federal investigation, with the Department of Education concluding Tuesday that Virginia's Loudoun County Public Schools violated Title IX by punishing boys who objected to a girl who identifies as a boy in their locker room and was recording them as they entered.

America's richest county practiced a "sex-based double standard" by failing to "meaningfully investigate complaints of sexual harassment" by the boys "concerning the presence" of the girl in their locker room, while "thoroughly" investigating her complaint against them.

The department gave LCPS, about an hour from D.C., 10 days to rescind the boys' suspensions, review its findings to verify the discipline is "warranted" and not disproportionate relative to "students who engaged in similar conduct and who had comparable disciplinary histories," and formally apologize for its improper investigations of complaints.

LCPS must also train all high school and county staff "who receive or respond to reports of sexual harassment under Title IX," the department said. It's one of the five northern Virginia counties to refuse to change its gender identity policies following Trump administration demands and be placed on "reimbursement status" by the feds as a result.

The district did not respond to queries on how it plans to respond.

Female student fears assault: 'no one would know because it's in a bathroom'

At least two Maryland lawmakers, both Republicans in the deep-blue state, denounced AACPS after it went viral.

"Imagine you have a high school-age daughter, and she is getting looked up and down while she is changing in the locker room by a biological high school-age man," state Delegate Matt Morgan, whose district is near the southwest border, wrote on X. 

"Do Annapolis Democrat fathers then tell their daughters to seek counseling for their bigotry?" he said, referring to the lawmakers in the state capital, located in the county.

"Do we really want biological boys,or even grown men, sharing bathrooms with our daughters and granddaughters?" Maryland Freedom Caucus Vice Chair state Delegate Kathy Szeliga, who represents parts of Baltimore County, wrote on X. "This isn’t compassion, it’s madness."

WBFF reported that Old Mill "students were greeted with a statement they'd never seen before" on the first day of school, though the district retorted that the "signage" at the high school "is not new and was in place at least throughout the last school year with no controversy." It did not say where the signage had been placed or even that it was in restrooms.

AACPS chief communications officer Bob Mosier told WTOP Old Mill had posted "signage," no location given, "for more than a year without issue" before this school year, but he also said AACPS has received complaints about its guidelines "to support LGBTQ+ students" since 2019. It was "one of the first, if not the first" in Maryland, to develop gender identity guidelines. 

A female student told WBFF "I wouldn't be bugged out" if the sign were in another public restroom, "but in a school where there's underage people," she objects. 

"A man could have an unhealthy obsession with a woman and they could follow her in the bathroom now … and something could happen in there and then no one would know because it's in a bathroom" with "no cameras," she said, fearing someone will get "assaulted."

AACPS Superintendent Mark Bedell, Mosier and the school board office did not respond to queries about its decision to post the sign, where exactly it was posted, how much it stands to lose in federal funding and how it plans to protect females from males in their spaces.

Accommodations 'stigmatize and burden girls,' treat as 'second-class citizens'

The Maryland Family Institute on Sept.9 asked the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to investigate the district, though MFI told the Capital Gazette it knew about the policy before Libs of TikTok broadcast it days earlier. Its advisory board includes Szeliga.

"We had heard from families across the state before, and because Libs of Tik Tok provided photographic evidence of the violation of Title IX, we decided to act on what we knew," MFI spokesperson Josue Sierra wrote in an email.

"We received confirmation from a senior official at the Department of Education that our complaint letter was received," Sierra said. The department told Just the News it does not "confirm complaints" and didn't answer when asked if there was any reason to think it would not investigate AACPS based on its prior investigations of similar policies.

The Gazette reported that the district's Facebook page was "flooded with complaints" following the Libs of TikTok post, but Just the News could find no trace of criticism on its page Tuesday and many of its posts include the disclaimer that it "limited who can comment on this post," suggesting AACPS scrubbed negative comments.

The MFI letter does not specifically mention the girls' restroom sign but rather the broader regulation, known as "JQ-RA: Safe and Inclusive Environments for LGBTQ+ Students," which MFI alleges "explicitly undermines the privacy, safety, and equal treatment of female students."

It grants students access to opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and facilities on "overnight field trips and camps" based on their gender identity, and participation in sex-segregated "physical education classes and intramural sports" on that basis as well.

"Forcing girls to undress, shower, or sleep in the same quarters as biological males violates not only common sense and parental rights but also the spirit and letter of Title IX, which was enacted to protect female students' equal access to safe education," as well as President Trump's executive orders against gender ideology, MFI said.

Though the policy grants any student "who is uncomfortable sharing a common area" or needs "additional privacy … a designated safe and non-stigmatizing alternative," such alternatives "stigmatize and burden girls, treating them as the ones who must adjust their behavior" and treating them as "second-class citizens within their own schools."

Unremarked in MFI's letter: The AACPS restroom sign goes further than the policy, which requires students to "consistently" demonstrate and identify with "a specific gender identity." The sign does not require a consistently expressed, specific gender identity, conveying to genderfluid males they could use both boys' and girls' restrooms.