SMITHVILLE, Mo. Before his trans daughter’s use of the female restroom at her Missouri high school resulted in her suspension. prior to the attempts at death and harassment. prior to she left.
Before all that, Dusty Farr was — in his own terms—” a whole-on bigot”. By which, he meant that he was eager to avoid anyone who was LGBTQ+.
Today, though, after everything, he says he wouldn’t little care if his 16-year-old daughter— and he boldly calls her that — told him she was an alien. Because she is dead.
“When it was my child, it just flipped a switch”, says Farr, who is suing the Platte County School District on Kansas City’s outskirts. “And it was like a wake-up”.
Farr has found himself playing an improbable role in the fight against bath restrictions, which have exploded in recent years on both the state and local levels. But Farr is not so strange, says his counsel, Gillian Ruddy Wilcox of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri.
“It often takes meeting a man before one can state,’ Oh, that’s a man and that’s who they are, and they’re only being themselves,'” she says. “And I do think that for Dusty, that’s what it took”.
Dusty Farr talks with his transgender daughter in a park near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. Farr is suing the Platt County School District after his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bathroom at the Missouri high school she attended.
Sandy Farr speaks with his trans child in a garden near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. After his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bath at the Missouri high class she attended, Farr is suing the Platt County School District.
Looking up, Farr figures his child, the youngest of five, started feeling out of place in her own body when she was only 6 or 7. But he didn’t see it.
Farr claimed that in the traditional Lincoln community where he was raised,” there was not a lot of exposure to what I do consider the outside world.” “Only old producers” is how he described it.
Moving to the Kansas City region, which has 20% more people than live in all of Nebraska, was a culture shock. “I would still have my closed-minded thoughts if I had never seen the LGBTQ community away tight.” He later said stuff that he now regrets. “A lot of insulting words. I don’t want to go back to that place”.
He made his home in one of the more traditional communities, which is where some of the troops stationed at near Fort Leavenworth, and he made his home. At a vehicle repair shop, he worked as a company boss.
His youngest — a bright, funny, loves-to-speak, light-up-a-place kind of kid— was his fishing and camping buddy. She also participated in competitive archery, and she went with her father to the collection for shooting.
“No parent has a favorite”, Farr says,” but if I had a favorite, it would be my youngest”.
But when she was 12 years old, she started to avoid him and spend more time with the rest of the home. Before she came out with her family, it lasted for a few weeks. He is presently aware of how difficult this was. “Growing up”, he says, “my kids knew how I felt”.
His family, whom he described as less protected, was on board quickly. Him, not so much.
“Given the way I was raised, a conservative fire and brimstone Baptist, LGBTQ is a crime, you’re going to heaven. And these were things, however, that I said to my girl”, Farr says. “I’m sort of ashamed to say that”.
They bumped faces and argued, their marriage strained. In despair, he turned to God, poring through the Bible, questioning lessons that he once took at face value that being transgender was an abomination. He prayed on it, also, replaying her youth in his mind, seeing female qualities today that he had missed.
Therefore it hit him. “She’s a girl”.
“I got harmony from God. Like,’ This is how your daughter was born. I don’t make mistakes as God. She was thus made. There’s a purpose for it.'”
Dusty Farr talks about his efforts to fight bathroom bans after his transgender daughter while visiting a park with his daughter near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. Farr is suing the Platt County School District after his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bathroom at the Missouri high school she attended.
Sandy Farr speaks about his efforts to fight bathroom restrictions after his transgender girl while visiting a park with his child near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. After his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bath at the Missouri high school she attended, Farr is suing the Platt County School District.
The move was nearly instantaneous. “An immediate epiphany”, he calls it. When you can accept the situation as it is and aren’t carrying that false hate and disgust, it’s inspiring.
His child, who is named solely by her letters of R. F. in the lawsuit, was stunned. He had been, she recalls,” to say it well, quite annoying”. Then all was unique.
“There was this natural joy-like energy in me that was only.” As she and her miniature Jack Russell terrier Allie played together in a garden on a chilly February day, she recalled seeing someone who she thought would never help me but who was also one of my biggest supporters. Her papa was with her.
Because she is unknown in the complaint and to safeguard her from discrimination, she, her father, and her attorneys requested that she keep her name an private.
All those times, he had missed it. He then finds it odd.
“I’m not sure if it was my inside prejudice, or if I was blind, or whether it was just my inner intolerance.” I don’t know”, he says.
But he doesn’t enjoy focusing so much on the how and the why.
“Where we’re at now is what matters”, he says. “Me being a loving parents. Me being accepting, me knowing that this isn’t a choice. This is how she was born”.
His daughter was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or distress caused when gender identity doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex. Prescription medications to prevent adolescence are a popular treatment.
That’s what Farr’s child did, along with growing out her mane. She had companions, and Farr says issues returned to normal — for the most part.
But finally came great school. “And”, Farr says, “anything I did to her, school was 10 times worse”.
The school knew about her sex anxiety treatment, Farr says, describing it merely as a medical problem. He liked to talk about a situation of chicken pox by telling them about it. Today, the situation appeared less significant. “We were golden”. After all, he says:”If we don’t evolve, we die”.
However, the assistant principal’s princess had just begun the 2021-22 school year. The high school was in people, not the remote understanding that some schools experienced as the pandemic persisted. The superintendent stated in the lawsuit filed last year that students must use the sex-designated room at birth or a gender-neutral restroom. The city disputes that happened.
Another staff, the coat said, took it further and told her using the female toilet was against the law. The city disputed that happened, also.
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The thing is, there isn’t a law — at least, not in Missouri.
Missouri is not one of the more than 10 says that has passed laws governing bath use. The state of Missouri has implemented a ban on gender-affirming maintenance. For rooms, it leaves plan debate to local towns.
Farr used the phrase “asinine” to describe the entire flood of restrictions while also recognising that he probably would have supported them ten years ago. Kind of makes me like myself a little bit.
He believed it was all intended to intimidate her. He believes that some people mistakenly believe that trans children are attempting to see someone who isn’t completely clothed.
Some Republican politicians who have backed state-level bath laws have argued that they are responding to person’s fears that trans women share bathrooms, locker rooms, and other locations with transgender women and girls. However, opponents contend that restrictions actually lead to harassment of transgender people rather than the other way around.
“I don’t think they understand the seriousness of what just telling someone where to use the restroom can do,” he said.
His daughter didn’t understand:”It kind of just made me feel hopeless in my education”, she recalls thinking. How are they going to teach me what I need to learn when they are dictating where I urinate, because this place is supposed to be the only place that can teach me everything as an adult?
According to the suit, the gender-neutral bathroom was frequently in long lines and far from her classes. She, as a freshman, was missing class, and teachers were lecturing her. So she used the girls’ restroom. Verbal reprimands were followed by a one day in-school suspension and then a two-day, out-of-school suspension, the suit says.
Farr recalled telling the school, which claimed in its response to his lawsuit that his daughter was having lunch in the girls’ restroom and had unclean hands.”Your policy is stupid.
His daughter started using the boys’ restroom. Although the district claimed in its written response that she was “intentionally engaging in disruptive behavior in numerous bathrooms, perhaps to invite discipline,” the suit claimed that it was because she feared more discipline. It didn’t elaborate on what it meant by disruptive behavior.
One day, she was in the boys’ restroom when a classmate approached and told another student,”Maybe I should rape her”, the suit said. According to Farr, the student claimed that because she resembled a girl, he was threatening her.
Farr called the ACLU as well as the school, which is beyond enraged right now. The district acknowledged the incident, saying a student made a “highly inappropriate” comment about rape and was disciplined. By now, Farr’s daughter was afraid to go to school.
“If I use the restroom they say I have to, I’m going to get bullied. If I use the gender-neutral restroom, I’m going to be late to my classes”, Farr says, illustrating his daughter’s point of view. “So it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation”.
The district sees it differently, writing in a court filing that”there were numerous factors and circumstances in R. F.’s life, unrelated to school, which may have caused emotional harm, depression and anxiety”.
Dusty Farr talks with his transgender daughter at a park near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. Farr is suing the Platt County School District after his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bathroom at the Missouri high school she attended.
Dusty Farr talks with his transgender daughter at a park near Smithville, Mo., Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. After his daughter was suspended for using the girl’s bathroom at the Missouri high school she attended, Farr is suing the Platt County School District.
Ultimately, her parents got the school to agree to let her finish her freshman year online. But before the switch was approved, she had to miss three weeks of classes. Typically an A and B student, she plummeted to D’s and F’s. Worse to Farr, his daughter was withdrawing, losing friends and isolating herself in her room.
He describes it as”a dark rabbit hole of depression”. Twice she tried to kill herself and was hospitalized. Everything was kept secret, from butter knives to headache medications.
She made a personal appearance to begin her sophomore year, hoping things would turn out better. Before going back to online school, she only had a few weeks to do it.
At semester’s end, Farr and his family moved out of the district. In her new school, restroom access remained a source of friction, so she once more switched to online learning. Farr and his wife let her leave last spring when she turned 16 and consented to do so. He claims that they made the right decision to concentrate on her mental health and that it is “probably the best decision we’ve ever made.” Still, it feels strange.
He said,”I never would have guessed that I would — I don’t want to use happy — but I would be okay with one of my kids leaving school.”
She is currently receiving hormone replacement therapy, leaving her room, and spending time with Farr while she is in counseling. She is conducting job interviews and considering a program to finish her high school education. She’d like to go to college one day, and study psychology, maybe law.
With the lawsuit filed, customers have approached Farr, telling him they support his fight. They would scoff, he had anticipated. Even his own parents are in favor, which he claims surprised the hell out of me.
“These aren’t the people who raised me, let me tell you”, he says.
Sometimes Farr’s daughter yells at him, and he admits that he missed the teen attitude. That battle and spirit had vanished.
“Being a teenager is hell”, he says. “Being a trans teen is 10 kinds of hell. She’s the brave one. I’m just her voice”.
He thinks his family’s circumstances allow him to succeed in this role because he believes he has matured enough to do so. “Our kids”, he says, “are dying”. He believes that people will listen when he raises alarms because of where he was from. Maybe.
“It’s almost like a transgender person”, he says of his transformation. “There’s the dead me. And then there’s the new me”.
— By Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press
