Illinois school board meeting madness continues as tensions escalate over trans athletes in girls' sports

Fox News

03-06-2025

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An Illinois school district's board meeting was overtaken by opposing protesters for the second time on Monday night amid erupting tensions over trans athletes in girls' sports.
The community has been embroiled in a growing divide after a junior high trans athlete won three girls' track and field events in May.
The Naperville Community Unit District 203's board meeting saw nearly its entire three-hour duration dedicated to impassioned debates over the issue. The district's last board meeting on May 21 saw the same situation play out, prompting national attention.
During Monday's gathering, like the last meeting, the seats were packed with community members of conflicting cultures, as half the room wielded transgender pride flags, while the other half raised "Protect Girls Sports" signs.
Several speeches eventually erupted into loud boisterous lectures, while nearly every speech was met with a roaring applause from half the room.
A pro-transgender speaker named Patty Drugan asserted that the conservative activist group Awake Illinois was causing transgender youth to commit suicide in the state, while defending the trans junior high student at the center of the controversy.
"You need to take a look at Awake Illinois' website, and those are the reasons why these children are committing suicide!" Drugan said. "The shame is on all of you because for those of you who didn't disrespect that child, those of you who didn't stand up for that child, the shame is all on you!"
Another pro-transgender speaker named James Katchmeric claimed that the rhetoric to keep trans athletes out of girls' sports was "Nazi stuff."
"I learned what happened in World War II, and I found that trans people were the ones who were attacked first. So this is Nazi stuff," Katchmeric said. "
The pro-transgender protesters sitting in the front row turned their backs to the "Protect Girls Sports" speakers at the lectern during their speeches throughout the night. Multiple speakers there to oppose trans inclusion in girls' sports wore shirts from the activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics.
Awake Illinois founder Shannon Adcock wore an XX-XY Athletics shirt, vowed to protect girls' sports and asserted the federal government's authority takes precedence over the state's laws that protect trans inclusion.
"We are going to protect these children and Title IX will reign supreme. Federal supremacy exists, it doesn't matter how many times people wish a certain state statute can overrule federal law, it cannot," Adcock said.
Illinois law has protected the right of biological males to compete in girls' and women's sports since 2006.
After President Donald Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order on Feb. 5, Illinois state GOP lawmakers sent a letter to the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) asking when it would comply with the order.
However, the IHSA responded saying Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Illinois Department of Human Rights have declared that state law requires that transgender athletes be allowed to participate based on gender identity. So the issue has persisted in the state, while many families and lawmakers are calling for Trump's administration to intervene, as it has in Maine and California so far.
Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., addressed a second letter on May 21 to the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice asking for federal intervention into the issue. Miller previously sent a letter in April asking for intervention.
Miller's latest letter asks U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to specifically look into the Naperville incident and consider pulling federal funding from the state, as seen in a copy obtained by Fox News Digital.
School board meetings have been a platform for invoking that intervention in the state so far.
Currently, there is one federal Title IX probe in Illinois regarding transgenders impeding on female spaces, but it is only against one school.
Deerfield Public Schools District 109 is facing a probe by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights after middle school girls were allegedly forced by school administrators to change in front of a trans student in the girls' locker room.
Illinois mother Nicole Georgas brought light to the situation in March after filing a complaint to the Justice Department and then delivering a school board meeting speech that went viral on social media.
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