Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate Gaea Powell hosted a “First Amendments Rights Demonstration”, which was met with a counter protest by AGHS students and supporters of transgender rights on Wednesday, Dec. 6 from 3-4 p.m. at the intersection of Fair Oaks and Valley Road outside Arroyo Grande High School.
The First Amendment states that, “Congress make no law respecting an establishment or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” giving all U.S citizens the right to voice their opinions freely and question the government without risking being punished.
Powell aimed to exercise her First Amendment right and voice her opinions regarding gender neutral bathrooms in schools among other issues.
“Children are being victimized to an ideology and these unjust laws because a lot of citizens don’t even know how to speak up for themselves or exercise rights,” Powell said. “So the difference between the COVID mandates and what’s going on in the high school is that those laws have been passed by our state legislator and a lot of people think it’s insane.”
The law Powell is referring to is Senate Bill 760, which Gavin Newsom signed in September, and requires that K-12 schools provide gender-neutral bathrooms by July 2026 to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community.
Powell feels that this law has impeded children’s rights to the extent that the community needs to “Stop State Sanctioned Child Abuse” with her interpretation of abuse being the recently signed Senate Bill 760, resources transgender students use to transition such as: hormone therapy or dressing in a more feminine or masculine manner.
“I think [the bill] is sexualizing children and indoctrinating them and it’s basically pedophilia,” Powell said. “So like having drag queens at schools, would you have strippers at schools? When does it become nonsensical, and why are these grown men dressed as women at a school with preschoolers or high school kids?”
Protesters also advocated for the prevention of “Biological Boys in Girls Private Safe Spaces,” or “Biological Girls in Boys Private Safe Spaces,” which would prohibit transgender students from use the bathroom of their identified gender.
Powell’s protest was met with a counter-protest by several high school students and supporters advocating for transgender rights and maintaining inclusivity in school. Ace Corsiglia (‘25) participated in the counter-protest alongside several AGHS students, parents, and alumni.
“Our goal is to just not really out shout [the other protestors] but to just show that we know what they’re trying to do and we aren’t gonna stand for it,” Corsiglia said. “I mean half of us are trans and then the other half are queer, and they want to get rid of that, and we’re here to say that we are here, and we’re not leaving.”
LMUSD and AGHS share ideologies that suggest the school’s promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as embedded in AGHS’s Core Values, is progress.
However, one of the protester’s main concerns is the school’s promotion and teaching of DEI.
Micheal Punzalan, who supports Powell’s cause in the protest worries that teaching DEI could threaten students’ constitutional rights.
“[Educators are] using racism to combat racism. You’ll get an understanding as to why we’re seeing DEI and CRT in schools and it’s to divide and conquer, it’s not something good,” said Punzalan. “Our constitution and this flag is to protect everybody.”
Alongside protesters such as Punzalan, counter-protesters remained firm in their stance regarding the importance of gender inclusivity and transgender students’ rights.
“Some people are here because they don’t want outsiders making school policy, [and] some of us are here because we are trans or trans allies,” President of AGHS’s Young Progressives club Ethan Barnes (‘24) said.
Equipt with signs to support their causes, all protesters stood outside AGHS and exercised their right to peacefully protest under the First Amendment. While the topic was controversial, both parties were able to peacefully protest their cause under the supervision of the Arroyo Grande Police Department and AGHS staff.
