A 14-year-old high school girl was recently suspended from school after voicing her discomfort with a teenage male being allowed to change in the girls’ locker room. The teen, Blake Allen, is a high school volleyball player and freshman student at Randolph Union High School in Randolph, Vermont.
Allen and her dad, Travis, joined Fox News host Tucker Carlson to speak out against schools that punish teens like herself for feeling uncomfortable in these situations. She also wrote an opinion piece for Fox News, explaining her experience and sharing how it has affected her.
She reported that the issue began after her school allowed a male who identifies as a girl to play on the girls’ volleyball team.
“When the male student entered our locker room, we were changing,” Allen said. “Some of us didn’t have a shirt on; others of us were only in our underwear. Naturally, some of us were uncomfortable and asked the student to leave, but we were ignored.”
After presenting this issue to her mother, who brought it up to the school administrators, Allen was made out to be the “bad guy” for having an issue with the situation. The school refused to offer any support or alternative solutions for those who were feeling uncomfortable changing in front of a male.
Allen, frustrated with the school’s refusal to acknowledge her concerns as valid, was talking with her friends in French class. She was overheard telling her friends that “a dude doesn’t belong in the girls’ locker room,” and was reported to the school’s co-principals.
The school immediately initiated an investigation into the comments made by Allen, and the girls’ volleyball team was banned from using their locker room. Allen was found guilty of harassment and bullying “on the basis of the targeted student’s gender identity,” and was forced to participate in a “restorative justice circle,” submit a “reflective essay,” and serve an out-of-school suspension.
Allen appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight where she told Carlson that a lot of her classmates have been supportive of her during this time. She believes that most people are supportive of her, they’re just “too scared to speak up because they see all the backlash [she’s] getting for it.”
Her father, Travis Allen, was also suspended from his coaching job as the middle school soccer coach for standing up for her in a Facebook post. Angered by the male student being allowed in the locker room with his female daughter, he wrote, “He got a free show, they got violated.” After being suspended, Travis joined his daughter’s lawsuit.
Allen quickly partnered with Alliance Defending Freedom for legal assistance and sued the co-principles and Orange Southwest School District officials. That same day, the disciplinary actions against her were rescinded.
