A conservative social media firestorm erupted following Monday night’s McKinney ISD board of trustees meeting. One of the many topics discussed during the nearly three-hour meeting was whether the district should forbid boys from entering girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms.
A 49-second clip taken from the meeting is the specific object of controversy. In the clip, trustee Chad Green, sporting a white straw cowboy hat, introduces a motion that isn't received as warmly as he and many in the audience seemed to have hoped it would be. Green presented his motion just after Lee Moore, a member of far-right group Citizens Defending Freedom and wearing a shirt with "American Patriot" on it, blasted the board for not "protecting women and girls" by enforcing Title IX protections as they're currently defined.
“We support our young ladies and not allow any boys in their locker rooms or on their sports teams,” Green said, as the clip began just barely after he began introducing his motion. When asked by board president Phillip Hassler to clarify his motion, Green stumbled a bit as he said “That we support our young ladies, and not allow boys, that is young men, that have DNA that is boy DNA be allowed in the locker rooms or competing on the sports teams against young ladies.”
In relatively short order, the rest of the nine-person board, including Superintendent Shawn Pratt, declined to second Green’s motion. You don't have to listen too closely to hear a bit of commotion from the unseen crowd, which was partially made up of activists who had spoken earlier in the meeting about similar pronoun-intensive hot button topics.
When reached for comment via text message, Green told the Observer "at this time time I'm going to let the video speak for me."
Emails to Pratt and Hassler went unanswered prior to the original article's publication, however, Pratt provided the Observer with a letter addressed to district parents late Tuesday night.
"The motion did not receive a second because UIL guidelines and state law already protect McKinney ISD female students," the letter dated Aug. 27 read. "To take further action would have violated the law. Passing a frivolous and meaningless motion was unnecessary because protections are already in place in our district."
The letter, also posted to the district's website goes on to also state that "the concern raised regarding gender is false," as the district "does not allow students to enter locker rooms or restrooms that do not align with a student’s biological sex at or near the time of birth."
But of course, not everyone was silent. Conservative X users with substantial followings chimed in on the clip.
McKinney ISD, Texas - A motion was made by board member Chad Green to not allow males to enter girls' locker rooms or to compete in girls' sports.
— Sarah Fields (@SarahisCensored) August 27, 2024
The motion did not receive a second, and thus, it failed. No other board member would stand up for girls' rights.
Homeschool your… pic.twitter.com/JsPYaGLYK8
Conservative activist Sarah Fields, who has more than 220,000 followers on X and the ironic handle “SarahisCensored,” posted the video with a caption encouraging people to “Homeschool your child.”
Another conservative X user, Kyle Sims, was one of the first to post the video. While he tagged conservative media personality Sarah Gonzalez and right-wing local publication Dallas Express, others made sure to include Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton’s X handle in their replies.
One user replying to Sims’s post encouraged people to picket the Chick-fil-A locations that they say Hassler owns. Another claimed that the trustees declining to second Green’s motion “is how communist ideology is making its way mainstream.”
Mitch Little, a notable buddy of Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton and current nominee for the Texas House, added his two X cents with “Run them out.”
Little also posted the video and included a caption stating, “This is maybe the most unintentionally effective piece of political advertising I’ve ever seen. At what point did you realize you were wearing antlers and a furry white tail on the first day of deer season?”
Not ever to be one left out of a good, old-fashioned culture war debate online, former Republican state Sen. Don Huffines, no stranger to wild tweets himself, posted: “We are losing the culture war because many leaders lack the courage to fight.”
