A woman made a surprising move during a school board meeting by using her speech time to remove her clothing while speaking at the podium.
Beth Bourne, a recognized women’s rights activist, addressed the Davis Unified School Board on September 18 during one of their meetings.
At this gathering, Bourne was expressing her discontent with a policy that permits transgender students to utilize the locker room corresponding to their gender identity rather than their birth-assigned sex.
Bourne stated she has been attending these meetings monthly for three years to challenge the policy. On this occasion, she adopted a dramatic approach, which led to the meeting being paused for a brief recess.
While speaking, Bourne removed her clothes to reveal a bathing suit underneath, illustrating the unease she believes girls might experience if transgender women are allowed in the changing rooms.
“I’m a parent in the Davis Unified School District, and I’m here today to talk about the policies you have for the locker rooms in the junior high schools. So Emerson, Holmes, Harper Junior High,” Bourne said to the board.
“Right now, we require our students to undress for PE class. So I’m just going to give you an idea what that looks like when I undress.”
“If the adults don’t feel comfortable watching someone, and I’m a 50-year-old woman, how can they expect girls to feel comfortable doing that in the locker room?” she added.
“I thought I made a really good point.”
Bourne continued: “I just thought I would show the school board what it’s like to change into your P.E. clothing, and I had a bathing suit on, so everything was covered as far as my body.”
The meeting was temporarily adjourned for five minutes after Bourne’s initial disrobing.
Once the meeting reconvened, she resumed undressing at the podium and accused board members of infringing on her freedom of speech when they admonished her.
Bourne is the chair of Moms for Liberty, an organization that originated in 2021 to oppose vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic. The group has since advocated for the removal of LGBTQ+ related books from school libraries and protested the teaching of ‘critical race theory’.
Following the event, school trustee Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald informed local news outlet The Vanguard about the police being summoned when Bourne began to undress again.
Escamilla-Greenwald criticized the actions as ‘very inappropriate’ and mentioned that the board would be convening to determine further actions.
She stated: “We are going to be meeting about this, about what to do in such situations, and we’re going to, I know that our superintendent is going to be speaking with counsel to see what can be done because it’s very inappropriate for anybody to be coming before the board and behaving in such a manner.
“It’s very inappropriate.”