The frustrated parents of female athletes at Dakota Ridge High School are speaking out over an escalating locker room dispute, demanding answers after district officials placed a transgender player on the girls' junior varsity volleyball roster.
Four Dakota Ridge parents spoke with OutKick this week as tension in the gym turned into open opposition. Following the public outcry sparked by parents like Tanna Donalson, whose daughter and seven other juniors were cut from the volleyball program, outspoken fathers are now stepping forward alongside mothers to challenge state policies that elevate gender identity over female athletics.
Families are pressing Jefferson County Public Schools (Jeffco) for accountability, refusing to back down despite reported retaliation from school and district staff against those who question the policy.
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The conflict centers on district leadership invoking state non-discrimination guidelines to open female locker rooms to the player, even as coaching staff cut more than 35 female athletes from the program, as OutKick previously reported.
OutKick observed the fallout firsthand during matches against Standley Lake on Monday and Littleton on Wednesday.
Jefferson County Public Schools, Colorado's second-largest school district, has offered only one formal remedy for female athletes who object to sharing facilities: directing them to seek private changing spaces elsewhere in the building.
"The girls' locker room is a sacred space. What’s happening at Dakota Ridge is a slow burn to that sacred space," said Josh, a Dakota Ridge father in attendance at Wednesday's match who went on the record regarding the ongoing issue.
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"The Jeffco School Interim Superintendent said that they need to respect the privacy of all students. I guess 'all students' aren’t the 50-plus girls on the volleyball teams that use the girls' locker room. Dakota Ridge said they will make accommodations for girls who are uncomfortable in the locker room. That should be the other way around."
Internal emails obtained by OutKick show district leadership anticipated the dispute, quietly preparing weeks in advance while leaving parents and players blindsided when the athlete was placed on the roster without warning.
In an Oct. 6 email to district leadership, Dakota Ridge Athletic Director Jeff Legault warned: "I heard that meetings were held weeks ago to discuss a plan for this scenario, which is unfolding exactly the way it was predicted."
With the JV season ending, parent concerns deepened after coaching staff threatened to bench players overheard discussing the freshman athlete.
"DR staff and the district knew about this issue and kept it a secret. It’s still the elephant in the room," Josh said, noting that a former coach whose daughters played for Dakota Ridge subsequently stepped away from the program.
Josh estimated varsity parents are fractured into three camps: "25% don’t care or somehow think this is a fight against Trump, 50% just want this to go away, and 25% are fighting."
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Beyond locker room access, parents report a pervasive fear of retaliation.
Matters escalated when head coach Matthew Zeman allegedly threatened two players with benching after they were overheard discussing the situation in a school parking lot. Carey, the mother of one of the varsity athletes, sent a statement to OutKick, confirming details of the confrontation.
"A few weeks ago, my daughter and one of her teammates were told they couldn’t play in a volleyball game, nor could they attend the game after having a private conversation in the parking lot with a few other volleyball teammates about a transgender player they had heard of on the JV team," Carey said.
"After the other parent and I met with the coach and the athletic director, they reversed this, and they allowed them to play in the game, even though they didn’t even have any idea what the girls had said."
Carey said that the threat followed her daughter's earlier concerns regarding locker room arrangements.
"My daughter had also expressed concern about being uncomfortable in the locker room with this player. She was told that they could make accommodations for her, not the other player," Carey said.
"Now, as a parent, my number one concern is safety. Feeling safe and comfortable in a locker room is critical. Not only that, there’s fairness in female sports, and there’s the ability to speak up and talk about your concerns without feeling punished."
Carey, a Dakota Ridge mother who has worked with disabled individuals for over 30 years, emphasized that her concerns stem from basic fairness.
"I know all about inclusion, respect, fairness, and making things work. This situation has become out of hand, and I feel like we have to start asking better questions. We have to start coming up with better solutions while respecting everybody involved," Carey added.
"This isn’t about disrespecting anyone. This is about making it fair for everybody involved: primarily, safety in a girls’ locker room, fairness in sports, and making sure our girls are able to speak up and feel respected."
Josh backed up that account, noting that Zeman accused the players of "bullying" simply for talking amongst themselves, yet failed to cite a single broken rule.
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"When the couple of girls were talking about it in the parking lot, the coach found out about that and immediately pulled two of the girls out and was gonna bench them because they were talking, [calling it] bullying," Josh said. "And they asked, 'What did we do wrong?' And he couldn't name anything. And I feel like they were actually bullied by the coach for that. They're just talking amongst friends, as kids do in a parking lot with their varsity teammates."
Both Zeman and Jeffco Public Schools ignored repeated requests for comment. Approached directly inside the gym on Wednesday, Zeman refused to comment on the parents' frustrations.
Following a road match at Standley Lake on Monday, the team returned home Wednesday to face Littleton under heightened security, including an armed guard inside the gym. Parents reported seeing up to three security personnel at recent games.
The cold shoulder from district leadership was unquestioned. Josh watched the interim superintendent visit warmly with the trans athlete's family, then walk straight past the parents of the female players without uttering a word.
"He was there for them," Josh said.
Aaron, a Dakota Ridge parent who spoke on the record about the ongoing dispute, criticized the district's lack of transparency from the start.
"I think it's a little ridiculous how Jeffco is handling the situation. There should not be biological males in the girls' locker rooms. At any school in Jefferson County, Colorado, or the state of Colorado, for that matter," Aaron said. "And for them not to disclose this earlier in the season, it's very disappointing. They waited so long to disclose this information, you know, they put these girls in a very hard situation with not knowing."
When parents pressed for answers through formal channels, Aaron said district attorneys shut down the conversation entirely.
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"The school really hasn't been communicating very well at all. They've been leaving almost like they're trying to sweep it under the rug," Aaron added. "We had a meeting with Jeffco Legal and they kind of said that they would answer questions and didn't answer any questions at all, didn't give us any time. And they said they'd get back to us and we haven't heard anything since."
Zachary, a Jeffco father of three with a daughter in the district, didn't hold back when texting OutKick about the administration's backward priorities.
"The absurdity of trans girls (boys, in real life) playing on girls' teams is beyond lunacy," Zachary texted. "How did we get here? Why is Jeffco and these other districts so tied up in this fad? We have a mental health crisis and these school districts are manipulating and grooming these children without parental consent."
"What about women’s rights?" he added. "No boys in girls' sports unless they’re co-ed. Period. The government needs to step in and right this ship, ASAP."
And volleyball may be just the start for trans inclusion in Dakota Ridge girls' athletics.
"From what I hear, they are trying out for the basketball team this upcoming season," Aaron said. "I don't know if the coach has handled this yet or not, but from what I hear there are girls that aren't going to play or try out because of it."
With district administrators digging in, parents are taking their case directly to the November ballot. Grassroots momentum has coalesced around Proposition 134 to keep male athletes off female sports rosters, alongside Proposition 135, which would prohibit gender-affirming surgeries on minors.
It has been an uphill climb from the start, but parents say silence is no longer an option. Regardless of what policies future administrations roll out, these families are speaking up now. By exposing Jeffco’s failure to stand up for female students, they hope to fix a broken system and save girls' sports for their daughters.
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