True to their words at the previous school board meeting, parents upset about the presence of transgender students in sports and locker rooms that align with their identified gender spoke out once more at the latest Lucia Mar Unified School District meeting.
This time, they were opposed by a 300-person rally in support of trans students’ rights.
“I just wanted to be there as a minister of a religious community to let trans students know that there were religious communities that were fully in support of their rights,” Rev. Rod Richards of Unitarian Universalists San Luis Obispo said.
Ahead of the school board’s May 6 meeting, scores of people like Richards, Rabbi Micah Hyman of Congregation Beth David, and Episcopal priest and Community of Divine Love founder Rev. Greta Ronningen mobilized in front of the district office to defend trans students’ rights. The South County Democratic Club of SLO County organized the gathering.
Ronningen said she also feels compassion for those who “feel threatened” by trans students in spaces like gendered sports categories and locker rooms. During public comment at the May 6 meeting, she suggested appointing a restorative justice facilitator—an alternative to “parents yelling at each other.”
“There’d be someone who would work with the girls who feel violated by having trans [students] in their sports and in their locker room,” she told New Times. “There’d be a facilitator who would work with [them] and … the trans athletes. … Then there’s this listening circle where everyone comes together and is able to express their feelings without it being volatile.”
The rally—and dozens of public comments at the board meeting that followed—was a response to a group demanding that the school district comply with executive orders signed by President Donald Trump. His orders involve “keeping men out of women’s sports” and “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Not making the policy switch from state law to step in line with the new federal guidelines could mean parent lawsuits against Lucia Mar, according to several dissatisfied speakers at the school district’s April 15 meeting. Most of those attendees spoke at the behest of a flyer written by Harvest Church ministry director Shannon Kessler, scrutinizing a specific trans student athlete in the district.
That student spoke anonymously for safety concerns at the May 6 meeting, calling on the board to protect queer students from alleged daily harassment.
“Worse still, the danger doesn’t only come from other students,” she said. “Individuals like Shannon Kessler, [former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate] Gaea Powell, and [Lucia Mar board member] Mike Fuller are using their platforms to spread harmful misinformation and hateful rhetoric. They’re even involving members of the track team, handing them scripts designed to dehumanize and intimidate queer youth.”
Fuller didn’t respond to New Times’ request for comment. Since the April 15 meeting, Kessler has made comments about the district policy as the leader of Save Girls’ Sports Central Coast. She told New Times that the organization is hers alone and isn’t affiliated with any church. Kessler didn’t respond to New Times‘ other questions by press time.
Calls to change school districts’ trans student policy aren’t restricted to Lucia Mar. A petition from California Parents for Change—shared by the SLO County chapter of Moms for Liberty—issued a countywide protest starting April 28 for kids to be absent from school once a month until local school districts adhere to federal guidelines.
It’s unclear how many parents participated. Lucia Mar spokesperson Amy Jacobs told New Times that attendance on April 28 was higher than normal at nearly 97 percent. Lucia Mar’s average attendance this year has been around 93 percent.
Atascadero Unified School District board member and local Moms for Liberty Vice Chair Rebekah Koznek clarified that Moms for Liberty didn’t create the petition, but it was shared on the group’s Facebook by concerned North County parents.
While she added that Atascadero hasn’t had comments about trans student athletes at recent meetings, Koznek confirmed she attended Trump’s Feb. 5 signing of the executive order that aims to prevent trans women from participating in female sports.
“I was personally invited by the White House since I am named in a lawsuit that was suing the Biden administration against the 2024 changes to Title IX, filed in the 10th District Court, that allowed men/boys to compete against women/girls in sports,” she said. “I also support a third category for trans athletes for them to also have equal opportunity to compete in sports.” Δ
This article appears in May 8-18, 2025.
I attended the Lucia Mar School Board meeting on May 6 and noticed this Save Girls Sports and Protect our girls! group attempting to distance themselves from the churches they belong to by saying their issue had nothing to do with religion. Come on, we all know thats not true. The ringleader of the group, Shannon Kessler, is a ministry director of the local AG Harvest Church. Amy Duyst, the mother of the student who gave the tearful speech at the previous meeting about how scary it was for her to have a trans-athlete in the same locker room with her, is a bible study and prayer group leader at Harvest Church.
Harvest Church protests the flying of the Pride flag at city hall. Harvest Church pastors actively participate in anti-transgender rallies. Last summer, Harvest Church was one of at least two other local churches that sent out questionnaires to local candidates demanding to know their stances on LGBTQ rights, including access to restrooms, locker rooms and showers. This is echoed in Kesslers recent post asking for parents to speak up at the May 6 school board meeting if you are not pleased with this policy or feel you should not send your kids or grandkids to this district due to their policy of allowing biological males in the girls, locker rooms and sports.
No matter their own personal religious beliefs on the transgender issue, it is wrong for them to bully and humiliate ANY high school teenager with their public flyers and notices targeting the most vulnerable kids in our society. Possibly this group should ask themselves, what would Jesus do (WWJD), which is their own self-proclaimed standard of how to be a good Christian. Jesus taught us to respond to these issues with love, peace and understanding, not with hate or trying to exert control and inflicting harm.
Another of ringleader Kesslers calls to action is Message me if you are willing to stand up for girls, women’s and children’s rights. In theory, a good message as we should all want to protect girls, women and children, right? And at the pre-meeting rally, there were many in her group carrying signs saying, Protect our girls! Once again, a good sentiment even though Im not sure exactly what it is theyre trying to protect girls from in this case. But heres the problem: these are the same Harvest Church people who refuse to protect girls from being forced to carry babies to term that are the results of rape or invest. They believe terminating pregnancies in these cases is murder and that it haunt the girls for the rest of their lives. How does this in any way Protect our girls! from the horrendous trauma of the results of rape and incest, which Im pretty sure is much more traumatic than sharing a locker room with a trans-athlete.
In addition, how does Harvest Churchs support of Second Amendment gun rights Protect our girls! or any student, from being murdered in their classrooms by lunatics with guns? Im pretty sure thats also much more traumatizing to our girls than sharing a locker room with a trans-athlete.
If Kessler and her group are serious about Protect our girls! then try protecting them from the truly dangerous and harmful aspects of our society – rape, incest and guns – and stop demonizing children who think and live differently than they do.