Protesters support transgender students, banned from R.I. school
This past Saturday, a peaceful protest was held outside of Mount Saint Charles Academy, a private Catholic school in Woonsocket. The protest was in response to the school’s policy enacted this past October, which will ban transgender youth from enrolling. According to the school’s current student handbook,...
This past Saturday, a peaceful protest was held outside of Mount Saint Charles Academy, a private Catholic school in Woonsocket. The protest was in response to the school’s policy enacted this past October, which will ban transgender youth from enrolling. According to the school’s current student handbook, the school is “unable to make accommodations” for these students.
The organizer of the protest, AJ Metthe says as a transgender Rhode Islander who attended 8 years of Catholic School, he finds these exclusionary new policies to be disheartening.
“I was really moved into action by my own sadness and anger and I just wanted to channel those feelings into something positive and to bring the community together and just show the trans-youth that were watching that people are there to support them,” Metthe said.
The protest was planned to coincide with the school’s entrance exam, which occurred at 8:15 A.M. last Saturday. According to Metthe, the event was extremely well-attended, considering it was arranged in 24 hours to take place on a Saturday morning, with temperatures just above 30 degrees. Many concerned alumni, allies, and LGBTQ youth showed up to voice their support.
The school responded to the recent backlash in an email that states that while the school “recognizes its call to serve all children who desire a Catholic education…it also recognizes that it is not a comprehensive high school with the ability to serve all students.”
Metthe says one of the school’s alums made a Change.org petition, asking the school to accept trans students. As of this afternoon, the petition has more than 1,600 signatures.
Credit: AJ Metthe. Protesters outside of Mount Saint Charles Academy last Saturday morning.