School board rehires trans tennis coach after community rallies to save her job

A Pennsylvania school board has voted to renew the contract of a trans tennis coach after stalling the decision due to what many believe was concern over her gender.

While the Gettysburg Area School District board maintains that coach Sasha Yates’s transgender identity had nothing to do with the fact that it delayed a vote on renewing her contract, community members feel differently.

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“I cannot stand here and refuse to acknowledge that blatant transphobia is the main motivation behind this commotion,” said boys’ tennis team captain Tristan Smith at Tuesday’s board meeting, which was packed with almost 200 people, according to Penn Live.

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Yates has been coaching both the boys’ and girls’ tennis teams in the district since 2018 and has a reported “stellar coaching record.”

Board President Kenneth Hassinger claimed during the meeting that the vote on Yates’ contract was delayed due to 2022 accusations that she had changed in front of students in the locker room and spoken with them about menstruation and undergarments. The board also said there were now additional accusations that she used a women’s restroom and walked through the girls’ locker room.

The board ultimately declared the rumors unfounded, but it confused many as to why the 2022 accusations were being brought up again when Yates had already been rehired in 2023.

“The issue of Coach Sasha simply changing her attire in the girls’ locker room was promptly resolved,” Smith said. “There’s no validity to the disgusting claims I’ve heard about my coach.”

Despite the board’s denial that Yates’s gender played a role in all of this, one board member Michelle Smyers, has a history of anti-trans comments and has been publicly smearing Yates. In fact, Smyers has been working with former Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s organization America First Legal to take her down. In a statement about representing Smyers, the organization stated it is working to “protect students from the insidious transgender movement.” The statement also misgendered and deadnamed Yates.

In July, Smyers wrote on Facebook that “the transgender cult” was a “social contagion” and a danger to children. She’s also a member of her local chapter of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Moms for Liberty.

But Board President Hassinger maintains that claims the ordeal was based on Yates’s gender “are not factually correct in my world.”

“It was simply the issues that were outlined with the bathroom usage,” he said.

Ultimately, the board voted 6 to 2 to rehire Yates.

“I have been very moved by the outpouring of support that I have received,” Yates told Penn Live, adding that she is “very much looking forward to continuing to support and guide both teams as they represent Gettysburg Area High School in the coming seasons.”