The Gettysburg Area School District voted 6-2 on Tuesday to rehire a transgender tennis coach who reportedly stripped in front of teenage girls and asked them questions about their “panties” and menstrual cycles.
As per previous reports by The Epoch Times and Reduxx, Sasha Yates, who began identifying as trans in September of 2022, is alleged to have prompted concern amongst some of the teen girls and their parents after multiple incidents described as inappropriate.
In one, Yates reportedly stripped down to a “bra and panties in the girl’s locker room” when the soccer team was changing. In another, it was also revealed that Yates had gone into the girls changing room and began talking to the teens about their menstrual cycles and what type of panties they like to wear.
A third incident had allegedly occurred in April of this year after Yates had been provided with a key for a single-occupancy changing room and been reprimanded for the previous incidents. Yates is said to have engaged in conversation with a 16-year-old girl while she was in the locker room after following her into the bathroom to “strike up a conversation” with her.
According to Steve Carbaugh, the father of the girl in the third incident, she was made “very uncomfortable” with having to deal with Yates in such a compromising situation.
“My job as a parent is to protect my child,” Carbaugh said. “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? He is not being penalized because of what he calls himself. He needs to be penalized because of his actions and the fact that he can’t follow directions. This is a grown man going into a bathroom with a juvenile female. That’s a problem. That’s a huge problem.”
Despite assuring Carbaugh that Yates would not return as a coach this season, Yates appeared on the district’s rehiring list in July. Two subsequent school board meetings were held in August on the topic of rehiring Yates before the meeting this Tuesday, which featured the the school’s lawyer recommending his rehiring “to avoid the risk of litigation.”
One school board member, Michelle Smyers, was attacked for expressing concern over Yates’ alleged behaviour, which he has largely denied.
Following Yates’ rehiring on Tuesday, he stated that he was “very moved by the outpouring of support” he had received, and was “very much looking forward to continuing to support and guide both teams as they represent Gettysburg Area High School in the coming seasons.”
Kenneth Hassinger, the president of the school board, claimed that the concerns and reports about Yates’ behaviour were not credible.
“Overall I think it came down to widespread rumors that were going on in the public and we wanted to take a deep breath and make sure we had all the information before we took a vote,” Hassinger told PennLive, which did not recount the allegations in detail in their recent report.
“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,” he argued.
Following the decision, Michelle Smyers took to X (formerly Twitter) to express her disappointment in the verdict of the district.
“I was one of the two members to vote NO to rehiring this coach,” Smyers posted on X, formerly Twitter, following the vote. “The message received is clear: the district doesn’t give a damn about our children, especially our daughters.”
