Woodland Park school board passes resolution to recognize “only two sexes,” reject “gender ideology”

The board overseeing Colorado’s Woodland Park School District approved a resolution recognizing “only two sexes” during a contentious meeting Wednesday night — a move that comes as President Donald Trump has broadly rolled back protections for transgender people in the first two weeks of his second administration.

The measure read by Board of Education President Mick Bates cited Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

It also directs Superintendent Ken Witt to update district policy to reflect that there are only two biological genders and that there’s a right to privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms and fair competition in sports.

Woodland Park has not had any instances of students using bathrooms or locker rooms that are different than their biological gender, said board member David Rusterholtz, but “if it started on the coast, it’s going to end up here.”

“This is a culture war, and the war has been against the truth for many years. And I’m proud to say we need to stand for our kids, and we need to tell them the truth,” Rusterholtz said during the meeting.

Board member Keegan Barkley cast the sole vote against the resolution, and she asked her fellow board members why they were focusing on “nonsense issues” when the district is facing significant safety and infrastructure issues such as leaking roofs, boiler failures and inadequate heating.

“I wish we would spend more time on things that would actually help our students,” she said.

A copy of the proposed resolution was not posted online with the board’s agenda, but the measure’s title — “Recognizing Only Two Sexes and Rejecting Gender Ideology” — was enough to ignite concern among at least one LGBTQ youth advocacy group in Colorado.

“It is going to send a very clear message to trans youth that their school district doesn’t see or respect them,” said Ollie Glessner, spokesperson for Inside Out Youth Services in Colorado Springs.

Parent Allison Avery-Wollenhaupt, whose child attends Columbine Elementary in Woodland Park, described the resolution as “another bullying tactic.”

“They’re just creating a climate that makes these kids not feel safe and welcomed in their community and free to be who they are, and I just think that’s really sad that adults in power are doing that,” she added.

A spokesperson for the school district didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Denver Post on Wednesday. Neither did Bates, whose name is attached to the resolution on Wednesday’s agenda.

Woodland Park is a small district in Teller County northwest of Colorado Springs and has 1,844 students, according to the latest enrollment data from the Colorado Department of Education.

The district garnered national attention in recent years after a conservative majority on the school board hired a new superintendent and adopted a social studies standard that was created by a right-wing advocacy group.

Since taking office, Trump has taken other steps to roll back protections for transgender people, including signing an executive order Wednesday that directs the secretary of education to create a plan to eliminate federal funding for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

Conservative groups such as the American Family Association praised the change as one that acknowledges the truth. But experts with the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association hold that gender is a spectrum, not a binary structure consisting only of males and females.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also is investigating Denver Public Schools for “discriminating against its female students” by converting a girls restroom into a gender-neutral bathroom at East High School.

One of the best ways to support transgender students is to affirm and respect them, Glessner said, noting that a 2024 survey by the Trevor Project found that transgender and nonbinary youths had lower rates of suicide attempts when they found their schools were gender-affirming.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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