Board Votes to Rehire Trans Tennis Coach After High School Girls Say He Gave Them a Sick Surprise in Locker Room
A Pennsylvania school board has voted overwhelmingly to rehire a male-born transgender high school tennis coach despite the multiple complaints filed by administrators, students, and parents alike after the coach was seen undressing in the girls’ locker room.
Last week, the Gettysburg Area School District Board voted 6-2 to rehire transgender tennis coach Sasha Yates for the coming fall tennis season at Gettysburg Area High School, according to Metro Weekly. But the decision came with a cloud of controversy hanging over the coach and weeks of delay by the board.
Yates, who only started “transitioning” to a transgender woman in 2021, became a target of complaints after he was seen disrobing in the girls’ locker room at the high school — a sick surprise that caused many students to feel very uncomfortable.
According to PennLive, the school board has refused to say why it dallied so long over re-considering Yates’ contract, nor did board members admit why they were engaged in the debate at all. But multiple complaints from parents and students alike seem to tell the story whether the board wanted to admit it or not.
One of the main complaints apparently came from Gettysburg High School principal Jeremy Lusk who was aghast after Yates was seen disrobing in the girls’ locker room. Lusk shot out a memo characterizing Yate’s actions as inappropriate and said it is “imperative to maintain professional boundaries.”
Lusk also said that students reported that Yates was trying to engage the girls in a discussion about their favorite underwear and wanted to talk about their menstruation. Yates disputed those claims.
But others also complained about Yates being part of the school sports program.
One of the parents, Steve Carbaugh, for instance, told the school board that Yates walked into the girls’ locker room and then tried to engage in a conversation with his 16-year-old daughter, making her very uncomfortable, The Epoch Times reported.
Carbaugh’s daughter reportedly sent a text at the time saying “this damn tennis coach just walked into the girls bathroom,” and adding, “Like, [expletive] You’re a [expletive] man.”
The parent contacted the school after this incident to see if anything would be done about it.
“As far as I was concerned,” Carbaugh said, “they can’t protect my child while in their custody at this point.”
Carbaugh insisted that he was told in April that Yates would not be rehired as the school’s tennis coach. But he added, since then people began accusing those who questioned Yates of pushing “hate.”
“Now, everybody in this area seems to be crying that it is hate—that nobody wants this guy back because he’s transgender and it’s hate. This has absolutely nothing to do with hate on my part. I don’t care what the guy wants to call himself. What’s right is right. What’s wrong is wrong,” Carbaugh told The Epoch Times.
“My job as a parent is to protect my child. And he had no business going into that bathroom, and his actions proved that he cannot be trusted. He went into a girls’ locker room and changed while the girls varsity soccer team was in there. They talked to him about it. And he went into a girls’ restroom facility. When is enough enough?” Carbaugh said.
Carbaugh was not the only one to complain.
School board President Kenneth Hassinger also said he received several complaints that Yates was using the women’s restrooms and another which noted that Yates had shamelessly walked into the girls’ locker room when the girls soccer team was changing, PennLive noted.
For its part, the school claims that it changed its policy and has ordered all coaches to change in single-occupancy bathrooms from now on.
Despite all the complaints, though, the school board delivered a lopsided vote in Yates’ favor.
Hassinger claimed that the issues were all put to rest and deemed the complaints to be unfounded. He also insisted that “gender was not an issue” in the debate over rehiring Yates.
“We were able to go back and look and see if rumors and other stuff, if there was any factual basis behind it – and I think you saw the vote tonight would tell you that the majority of those rumors did not have a factual basis to them,” Hassinger exclaimed.
Yates also had supporters at the meeting. One student, who is the captain of the boy’s tennis team, blasted the opposition saying, “There’s no validity to the disgusting claims I’ve heard about my coach.”
For his part, Yates was thrilled over being rehired.
“I have been very moved by the outpouring of support that I have received,” Yates said, and “I am very much looking forward to continuing to support and guide both teams as they represent Gettysburg Area High School in the coming seasons,” he wrote in an email after the meeting.
Still, it is clear the board simply dismissed our-of-hand all the complaints and ruled them a non-issue despite how students and their parents felt over the matter, all in an effort to push the political agenda of the delusional transgender left at the expense of the children.
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