A then 16-year-old transgender student, from a school district outside of North Texas, said Frisco Independent School District Board Trustee Marvin Lowe made him feel “dehumanized, violated and unsafe” after he spoke on a panel last September at a state educational conference in San Antonio.
The student, from Brownsville, and his mother, who The Dallas Morning News is not naming because the student is a minor, sent an emailed complaint Oct. 22 to the Frisco School District detailing the encounter.
The alleged incident — some details of which have been corroborated by at least two witnesses, including the student’s mother — took place Sept. 28 at the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) and Texas Association of School Administration (TASA) Conference, according to the documents The Dallas Morning News received through a public records request.
After a session titled “Transgender Students in Texas Schools: What You Need to Know,” Lowe approached the teen, the complaint said, and, after speaking in complimentary terms about the session, told him that he was a Republican with differing views. Then Lowe began talking about what he described as the locker room environment.
“Men like to walk around naked with their junk hanging around,” Lowe said, according to the student’s complaint.
“He then reiterated this statement by mentioning his children and how they participate in such practice,” the student wrote in the complaint. “He then said that having a person with differing external genitalia walking around naked wouldn’t be OK because ‘that’s the type of thing that turns people on.’”
The News tried contacting Lowe. He did not respond to three voicemail and two emailed messages last week.
During the presentation, according to the student’s complaint, the student spoke to attendees about how school has affected him and shared information about how to best support transgender students, including legalities. The student also told the audience about discrimination he has faced at school regarding restroom and locker room usage.
The student, now 17, said in the complaint that Lowe’s discussion about a minor’s genitals and the arousal of an adult man made him very uncomfortable and bewildered.
“This conversation is very inappropriate. You need to stop,” the student’s mother told Lowe, the complaint said.
“No, you need to listen,” Lowe responded to the mother, according to the complaint.
“And this was cadence for the next couple of minutes until one of the organizers stepped in and physically placed himself between Lowe and my mother. It took the involvement of my mother, my representatives … and one of the organizers of the TASB/TASA to finally get Mr. Lowe to leave the room,” the student said in the complaint.
The student wrote that the fact Lowe felt it was OK to discuss a child’s genitals to a 16-year-old and the arousal due to it was blatant disrespect.
“I felt violated and dehumanized. A lot of discussion on the topic of transgender people almost always tends to focus in genitalia, and it truly hurts to only be seen or by the equivalent of what is in your pants,” the student wrote in the complaint. “It frightens me that someone of a high stature and power over a whole school district, an authority figure that I have been taught to respect, would say such things.”
Lowe won a seat on the board last year after ousting incumbent Natalie Hebert by just 53 votes in an election in which residents cast more than 15,000 ballots. The election caught the attention of national conservative groups, and one national group ran text campaigns for Lowe and trustee Stephanie Elad, who made the rounds on political talk shows.
Lowe and Elad gained the endorsement of the New York–based 1776 Project, an organization that says it wants to help elect school board trustees who promote “patriotism and pride in American history.”
Since elected, Lowe has been vocal about tightening the district’s policy on transgender bathroom usage and critical race theory.
Adri Perez, a LGBQ+ policy and advocacy strategist who was on the Sept. 28 panel and interviewed the student during the session, told The News the student’s discussion was emotional and brought some to tears.
Perez said some stopped by to thank the teen for helping people understand issues facing transgender students.
Perez, confirming the details in the student’s complaint, told The News that after the teen spoke on the panel, Lowe approached us and “started talking about why he thinks we should have separate locker rooms.”
“He made reference to his own genitals hanging down and how that would not be appropriate,” Perez told The News. “He described his genitals to me and to a child, and the child’s mother.”
Perez, when describing Lowe’s demeanor, said after the student told Lowe the conversation was uncomfortable, Lowe “dug down deeper,” became irate and directed the conversation toward the student’s mother.
“He had to be escorted out of the room,” Perez said. “He kept yelling things as he was being escorted out.”
The student’s mother in the complaint to the district said that Lowe, after being asked repeatedly to stop the conversation, did not stop.
“Instead, he raises his voice, even though he is less than 3 feet apart from us. This man is asked by one of the organizers of the event to stop, and instead of doing so, keeps raising his voice. My son did not hear the last part of the conversation, and I am thankful for that, because Mr. Lowe kept talking about how ‘people get aroused,’ using that explicit word at least twice,” she said in the emailed complaint.
“Any parent, any educator, any person, regardless of party affiliation, religion, or stance on trans-kids, would agree that there are no circumstances in which it would be acceptable for a grown man in a position of power, a school board member, to say those things to a minor, ”the mother told The News.
“There is no situation in which a school board member should be raising his voice and refuse to stop after a minor and his parent repeatedly tells him that he is being inappropriate and needs to stop. This is unacceptable behavior, and we should all be able to agree on that,” she told The News.
Erin Miller, chief student services officer for Frisco ISD, was at the conference and also emailed a complaint to Superintendent Mike Waldrip. Her email was on Oct. 6.
The student’s complaint was initially sent to Scott Warstler, the district’s chief operations officer. It was then forwarded to Waldrip, who forwarded it to school board president René Archambault, according to documents obtained by The News.
Miller referenced the incident to Waldrip, according to documents obtained by The News, and also told Waldrip about a meeting with Lowe during which he “again referred to genitals when discussing restroom use.”
Miller wrote in the email to Waldrip, “He continues to sexualize our students rather than see that gender identity is not about sex. I find him offensive and do not trust him around students in our district based on his encounter with a student that bordered on harassment.”
Miller also said in the email to Waldrip that Lowe is aggressive, seeks conflict and lacks the self-control and emotional composure to professionally engage in district conversations.
“I do not trust that he will ever make decisions in the best interest of students,” Miller wrote. “Mr. Lowe’s behavior frightens me because I don’t think he is fully in control of himself based on his emotionally charged responses.”
It is unclear if Lowe will face any disciplinary action for the alleged confrontation. In an emailed statement to The News, the district said it does not have the authority to take action in regard to Lowe’s behavior.
“The district is aware of the allegation that Mr. Marvin Lowe verbally harassed a minor at the Texas Association of School Boards and Texas Association of School Administrators Conference on September 28, 2022. Because district administration does not have the authority to take any action in regard to trustee conduct, the allegations were forwarded to the district’s board of trustees,” the statement read.
Board president Archambault said trustees discussed the concerns regarding Lowe’s conduct at TASA and TASB and “continues to monitor the situation.”
“My comments to this issue must remain limited due to the importance of the protection of a minor and the Open Meetings Act and the board is obligated to follow its operating procedures, as well as board policies regarding the review of a board member’s conduct and appropriate action, if any,” Archambault said.
“As the Board President, I plan to take the additional concerns recently raised to the board for review and consideration. State law and constitutional protections for individual trustees also limit the board’s ability to respond to trustee conduct,” she said. “Again, I believe it is imperative the board as a whole work collaboratively together for the best interests of our students.”
____
