After leading a group of fellow concerned parents in suing their daughters' school district over transgender-identifying student facilities policy, Richard Cutshaw has launched a campaign for Michigan State legislature.
In August last year, Cutshaw, a parent of several students in Vicksburg Community Schools, headed an inquiry into the school’s policy on transgender-identifying students after his daughter, who recently graduated from Vicksburg High School, informed him of a male student who was using the girl’s bathroom on campus.
The state representative candidate, who is running against incumbent District 42 representative Matt Hall, released a campaign video to his X account on Tuesday featuring Cutshaw standing outside a women's restroom. In the video, Cutshaw highlighted Vicksburg Community Schools' policy allowing students to use restrooms that "correspond with their gender identity."
"They have a policy that allows men like me in girls' bathrooms and locker rooms," Cutshaw said.
Cutshaw said the policy had made his own daughter and other girls at the school uncomfortable. The state legislature candidate said he was running in hopes to write a law that prohibits the "ridiculous policy."
"In case you didn't know, this still makes it wrong," Cutshaw says as he walks into the women's bathroom while wearing a women's wig.
Cutshaw told SCNR News that the lawsuit is currently in the discovery phase with subpoenas being issued followed by depositions.
"Everyone at the school is extremely polite. They almost walk on eggshells around me," Cutshaw said. "Once they know you're not afraid to speak up and you're not going to back down or keep the status quo, they become fearful."
Cutshaw said a transgender-identifying student at his daughter's school, who was using the girls facilities, had been asked by the administration to use the school’s single-stall restroom, though the student’s mother reportedly threatened to sue the school for discrimination.
“Basically, you’re going to make an accommodation for a boy who wants to identify as a woman so he feels safe and secure in a restroom or facility,” Cutshaw said of the school’s policy last August, “but you’re not gonna make an accommodation for the biological female to feel safe and secure in the bathroom or locker room of her biological sex.”
According to Cutshaw and other parents, the school did not provide public notification of the school's policy on transgender-identifying students.
“We tried all of our avenues,” he said. “We tried approaching the school, we tried talking to the board, we even had parents address the board."
Cutshaw said the board appeared more concerned about the transgender-identifying student than the parent’s concerns, adding parents were not informed of the policy on transgender-identifying students and said he was told to "take it up with [his] state legislators."
“We have to fight out battles in our local communities,” Cutshaw added. “We’ve gotta take our schools back. We’ve gotta take our local governments back.”
“It all goes from the bottom up and it’s all gotta start there,” he said.
The Michigan father, who owns and operates First & Last Freight Line, cited his lawsuit against Vicksburg Community Schools and concern over his daughters' safety as the reason for his decision to run for state office, per his website.
Cutshaw is the descendant of former Governor of New Hampshire Josiah Bartlett, who was also one of the nation's Founding Fathers, a delegate to the Continental Congress for New Hampshire, as well as a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation.
Moms for America has endorsed Cutshaw for State Representative.
