Students at a high school in Weaverville, North Carolina—just outside of Asheville—walked out of class this week to protest a trans-inclusive bathroom policy local media has characterized as "boys in the girl's bathroom."

The student protesters at North Buncombe High School are objecting to Buncombe County Schools' Gender Support Guidelines, which dates back to 2017, and states that "transgender and gender nonconforming students must be provided access to safe facilities (restrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms)."

"A transgender student may not be required to use a facility that conflicts with the student’s gender identity consistently asserted at school," it continues. "Schools should work with students and their families to facilitate restroom and locker room use that meets the student’s safety and privacy needs and the spirit of these procedures."

Those could include "a single occupancy restroom, use of a private area, or a separate changing schedule."

"All they have to do is pretty much say they identify as a girl if they want and just walk in there," Sylvia Gardner, a junior at the school who joined the walkout, told WLOS. She said she doesn't feel safe in school as a result of the policy.

“They can be whatever they want to be. That’s completely up to them," she continued. "I just don’t want them coming in on us.”

“I agree they should feel safe, I agree whatever their choice their family deserves the same kind of support as any other child in that school,” said Michele Dillingham, a parent of a student at the school. “However, what I would like to see moving forward is seven pages supporting my non-transgender child.”

"Our policy looks at it on a case-by-case basis through an interview process to look at what can we do to provide support for that student as well as make sure they are in a safe secure learning environment,” said Buncombe County Schools Student Services Director David Thompson of the policy and how it is utilized.

Local transgender advocacy group Tranzmission posted a statement to Facebook about the incident and the media's coverage:

Nonbinary and transgender people are not 'confused' with regard to our identities. The only confusion at hand is that of the hostile and bigoted culture in which we have to suffer and fight for basic rights. When local media outlets produce content that serves to provide a platform for discriminatory attitudes, they are contributing to a culture of violence that claims real, actual lives.

The so-called 'transgender debate' furthered by politicians and media outlets is actually a conversation about who deserves access to education, to employment, to housing, to healthcare, to public life, to justice and indeed, to their own survival. To frame it as anything else is to reduce the lives and experiences of human beings to a careless thought experiment that causes real world harm. We call upon media outlets, local and otherwise, to do better with regard to coverage of our community.

Local media coverage follows.