Lake County Gazette

Deerfield School District 109 administrators forced teen girls at Shepard Middle School to change in front of a boy in the school locker room.

That's according to parent testimony heard during public comment Thursday's District 109 School Board meeting.

After receiving a complaint from girls in early February that a boy was in their locker room while they were changing for gym class, District 109 “Assistant Superintendent for Student Services” Joanna Ford, "Assistant Principal" Cathy Van Treese and “Director for Student Services” Ginger Logemann reprimanded the girls, then escorted them to the locker room and tried to force them to change in front of the boy.

Kerrick Goodman-Lucker (R) is a woman who dresses like a man and has a mustache and beard. She believes teen girls should be required to undress in front of teen boys in school locker rooms. | twitter.com

Parent Nicole Georgas, whose daughter refused and ran out of the locker room, described her daughter's experiences to the school board Thursday.

"The male student was present in the girls locker room," Georges said. "Feeling violated, the girls made the choice not change into their PE (physical education) clothes with a biological male present."

The next day, Georgas said, Ford, Van Treese and Logermann tried to bully them into to changing in front of the boy.

"(The administrators) all came into the girls locker room, making them change into uniform. This went on all week," Georgas said. "My daughter refused to take part in her privacy being violated. How dare they!"

She said Shepard School Principal Rob Wegley told her daughter that any male student can use any girls bathroom or locker room at his school so long as they say claim to “identify as female.”

Georgas said Wegley told her this was the school policy as dictated by Ford and "legal counsel."

Georgas said she has filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of her daughter with the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Transmasc nonbinary human"

The school board meeting attracted a horde of cross-dressing activists from around the Chicago area, who came to speak in favor of requiring teenage girls to undress in front of teenage boys who pretend to be girls.

Kerrick Goodman-Lucker of Northbrook, a female who dresses like a male and has grown a mustache and beard, said she had a male cross-dressing friend in college who "was pulled out of a woman's bathroom and attacked by a police officer for using a bathroom (he) thought was safe."

She complained that cross-dressing kids are "being attacked as liars... and deviants."

Jesse Holzman of Chicago, a woman who describes herself as a "Queer, Non-binary, Consensually Non-monogamous, Intersectional Feminist, Anti-Racist, Activist, Educator and Scholar," said that "ensuring access to (girls') bathrooms and changing rooms is not controversial."

Holzman said that "research" shows middle school girls "do better, academically, socially, and emotionally" when boys are allowed to watch them undress in school locker rooms.

At Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, Holzman is a recruiter of cross-dressers for a federally-funded study of "HIV incidence" in cross-dressing men. On her Linkedin, she says she also "crafted a pronoun guide" for Lurie. She previously worked as an independent "gender and sexuality consultant" 

"Kristal Larson" of Hainesville, the Avon Township Clerk and first cross-dressing male ever elected to office in Lake County, came in a skin-tight, black mini-skirt dress to speak "on behalf" of "2,000" cross-dressing school students he claims attend Lake County schools.

Larson said he was "once a boy in middle school...back in the 1980s" because he "didn't know any differently."

He said the school board should have more concern for the cross-dressing boy, who "finally feels authentic" in the girls locker room.

"How are they feeling?," he said. "That's what we really need to be considering."

Charlee Friedman of Berwyn, a female who describes herself as a "transmasc nonbinary human" and also has a beard, used much of her three minutes at the podium to praise Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker for "protecting" the right of teen boys to watch teen girls undress.

"We're very lucky to live in a state that protects (cross-dressing men), she said, adding that her cross-dressing son was "standing next to Pritzker when he signed" an executive order in 2019 establishing a task force ordered to create special rights for cross-dressing teens across the state.

In 2023, Friedman started a "Go Fund Me" seeking to raise $3,000 for what she called her "yeetus the teetus fund," paying for surgery to remove her breasts.

"Last year I started the process toward dealing with some unfortunate health issues with the added bonus of helping with my gender dysphoria by getting a hysterectomy. It was amazing and life changing but I put my entire out of pocket on my credit card," she said.  "This year I have my top surgery upcoming and... Well I simply cannot do that again."

Tina Nelson of Deerfield, who informed the board she is a lesbian, said those opposed to letting boys watch teen girls undress in the locker room are "petty women" pushing "the white supremacist agenda of their 'cis white' husbands" and their "White God."

Cross-dressing activists refer to non-cross dressers as "cis" and to white non-cross dressers as "cis white."

The Deerfield District 109 School Board includes Sari Montgomery, Ryan Kuo, Kelly Jakymiw, Rosie Bona, Andrew Morrison, Mitch Dornfeld and Kate Joyce.

Jakymiw and Joyce are running unopposed for re-election in the April 1 Consolidated Election, along with new candidates David Murav and Remoun Abraham, for four open spots on the board.

Montgomery and Morrison are not running for re-election.