Petition Seeks to Remove Huyler’s ‘Warwick Watch’ Facebook Page

Warwick, RI — The latest community watchdog misadventure of former mayoral candidate Stacia Petri, now using her married name, Huyler, has inspired protests, alternative Facebook pages and a Change.org petition to remove her Warwick Watch Facebook page after she criticized a 15-year-old transgender girl.

“Warwick Watch is being informed that a transgender male student is being allowed access to the girls locker room at Pilgrim High School. We are also being told that it has made some female students uncomfortable and the female students are being told to change in the nurses office as an alternative to the girls locker room,” Huyler wrote on her Warwick Watch Facebook page April  30 (The post was removed by Facebook but has been archived by the petition’s author, Chris Quinn.)

Despite Huyler’s claim to have been privy to students’ complaints, the issue wasn’t raised within the school, said Superintendent Phil Thornton, either before or since the Warwick Watch Facebook post.

Prior to the whole social media component, “I didn’t hear anything at my level,” Thornton said.

Thornton said the student, since self-identified as Ashlynn, asked to use the girl’s gym changing area since she’s a trans-gendered girl, which has private showers and changing space, and the law requires Warwick Schools to allow students to use the facilities they’re most comfortable with.

That would also apply to a trans-gendered boy who wanted to use the boys changing room and shower space, where accommodations are communal, Thornton said.

“The law is the same. Either way, the law states the student can use the bathroom with which they identify,” Thornton said.

Thornton pointed to a summary of the protections provided trans-gendered people under state law posted by the RIACLU.

In North Carolina, the federal government is suing the state over its recently passed “bathroom bill” that limits people’s access to gendered restrooms according to the gender stated on their birth certificate.

In that case, the federal government references projections in both Title VII and Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits discriminatory acts related to employment and labor. Title IV prohibits discrimination against anyone in an educational setting receiving federal funding.

Before Huyler’s Facebook post was deleted by Facebook, the comments from Huyler about Ashlynn began to cross a line, said the moderator for Warwick Watch Alternative, who did not disclose her name.

“It very quickly escalated into cyber-bullying,” said the moderator, who expressed concern on the Warwick Watch Alternative page that she might become of a target of Huyler or her friends.

Huyler asked whether Ashlynn had had a period during one exchange.

Thousands of commenters weighed in defending Ashlynn’s right to use the girls changing room and chastising Huyler for bringing unwanted attention to bear on Ashlynn. Most of the comments supporting Ashlynn were deleted, Warwick Watch Alternative’s moderator said.

In response, Warwick Watch Alternative’s moderator said she created her own page to be a more positive version of Huyler’s page.

“I was just really sick of the negativity of the page,” she said.

Other online responses to Huyler’s criticism of Ashlynn have been posted, including the Anti-Warwick Watch Facebook page, and the Warwick Watch Watch Facebook page, in addition to the Change.org petition, which now has 1,721 supporters.

While Facebook has removed Huyler’s original post and routinely responds to reports of specific posts and threads, users have reported mixed results in attempts to have entire pages removed from the social media network.

A thread on Quora.com details several unfulfilled attempts to lobby Facebook to remove pages, and one success with the removal of a page dedicated to posting stereotypes of Aboriginal people as drunks and addicts, as the result of a Change.org petition.

That petition received more than 15,000 supporters.

Thornton said that while it seems that some of the adults in the community are very concerned about the issue, the students do not appear to be concerned.

Ethan Miller, who commented on the issue on the Warwick Watch Alternative page, confirmed the it’s not an issue among the students he knows.

“Ashlynn, you don’t know me, but I want you to know that all of my friends and I think that you deserve to use the bathroom associated with the gender you identify as. We think that you deserve to be treated like every other person, every other GIRL in Pilgrim. It’s so stupid that this is what Pilgrim has to get attention for; what about the fact that perfectly capable and amazing teachers are being let off. But no, Pilgrim is getting attention for a “scandal” that doesn’t even exist,” Miller wrote.

Ashlynn’s trans-gendered access to the girls restroom wasn’t the first controversial campaign Huyler has launched.

Author: Rob Borkowski

Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at editor@warwickpost.com with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.