A Republican School Board Member Came out as Trans. Then Came the Calls for Resignation

“Good evening,” Escondido Union High School District Trustee Carol Durney said during roll call at the district’s Aug. 5 board meeting. “I was elected to this board in November 2014 as Bill Durney and re-elected in 2018 and 2022. This year I have come out as a transgender woman, and I have changed my name to Carol Durney,” she continued. 

“With that – as Carol Durney – present.” 

For Durney, the announcement was a culmination of a yearslong journey that has left the 64-year-old, a conservative and former president of the Escondido Republican Club, navigating both her new identity and the fraught political reality it brings.  

The moment was also laced with anxiety. She’d come out to her children, she’d come out to her family, she’d spoken about her journey to her congregation at church. Most had supported her. How would a board room of school officials and the public react? 

After all, her revelation comes at a politically distressing time for trans people. Conservatives have spent years demonizing them, resulting in sweeping, nationwide rollbacks of trans rights. And there are few places where the attacks have been more acute than school board meetings. 

Those attacks, however, have often revolved around more abstract issues like school policies or books. It’s been much rarer for people to vilify a trans elected official to their face. But that’s exactly what Durney experienced. 

And even as her coming out kicked off a wave of attacks from local anti-trans activists and demands for her resignation, she can’t help but marvel over just how “damn happy,” she feels.  

‘My Life Was Going to Be Different’ 

Durney said she never really gave trans issues much thought. She didn’t share the animus many conservatives felt toward trans people, but she never really understood them either. She also had no inkling she might be trans herself. 

In retrospect, she thinks there were signs. She never felt comfortable around men. She loathed locker rooms. Her friends were all women. In her mind, though, these weren’t telltale signs. 

But there was also something deeper. She’d always felt like she’d muddled through life, like there was something wrong with her. And while she loved her wife, her three children and her family, she never quite loved herself.  

“I always looked at myself, quite frankly, as a sad, pathetic excuse for a guy,” Durney said. 

Then in 2023, Durney had a stroke. It hit her occipital lobe, erasing some of her vision in her right eye. The experience was a shot across the bow, she said. From then on, she decided to actively pursue things that made her happy.  

But the stroke had another odd side effect. It broke her lifelong nail-biting habit. Within a couple of weeks her nails had grown long enough that she needed to file them. Then, her wife invited her to get a mani-pedi at a salon. She accepted. That’s how she was introduced to nail polish.  

Durney said getting her nails painted for the first time was like magic. It just felt right. So, she began getting them painted regularly. Deep sparkly blue. Blood red with a spiderweb on each pinky, for Halloween. A color-changing holographic purple. She regularly posted her new paint jobs on social media. 

Then, a little over a year later, Durney’s wife of 26 years passed away unexpectedly. The loss devastated Durney and her children.  

But shortly after the funeral, as Durney was cleaning her house, she did something uncharacteristic. She tried on one of her wife’s dresses.  

Standing there in front of the mirror, she broke down in tears. 

“I felt so much joy and happiness and was thinking ‘Where the hell have these clothes been all my life?’” Durney said. “Right then, I knew my life was going to be different.” 

Durney had always figured the deep, existential discomfort she’d felt about herself and about her body was just par for the course. This was one of the first moments she realized it may not have been. 

She still wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but she decided to roll with the unexpected feelings. She bought some new clothes and discovered she loved skirts. She started to grow her hair long, like she once wore it in the 1970s. And she began speaking to her children about the changes. In December, she’d begun to wear dresses in public, to go to church and to go Christmas shopping. 

By then, she’d started to suspect something big was happening. But she still hadn’t put words to it. 

Around this time, she stumbled on an X thread written by a trans woman. It was a list of feelings the user had long struggled with that they now believed were associated with gender dysphoria. The sensations ranged from an ambivalence about clothing to feeling rudderless to feeling simultaneously repelled by, and jealous of, queer people. 

To Durney, each one hit her harder than the last. By the end of the list, she was sobbing.  

“There was this undercurrent that’s been there my whole life, I was on edge all the time. I just didn’t realize that there was a reason for it,” Durney said. 

In January was the first time she asked herself, “Am I a woman?” 

The answer had become clear to her. She was. She even had a name in mind. Carol. The realization left her feeling transformed. Just months ago, she didn’t like what she saw when she looked in the mirror. 

“Now, I love that person in the mirror. My heart is full of love,” Durney said. “I cannot convey the feeling of gender euphoria when you’ve been suffering from gender dysphoria. I would never want to go back to the old way of living. Never.” 

The next month, she shaved off the mustache she’d had for 36 years. 

In the months that followed, she gradually came out to friends and family. Firs,t she spoke to her children, who accepted her with open arms. Then to her parents, who were more confused. In June, she described her journey in an emotional talk to her church community.  

Then, in early August, she took another big leap at the Escondido Union board meeting.  

‘An Update About Me’ 

Durney’s announcement didn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier in the summer, she’d texted each of her fellow board members a link to the video of her speaking at her church.  

“Check out the attached video for an update about me,” she wrote. “If you have questions, or would like to talk, please reach out to me.” 

The Aug. 5 board meeting, though, was the most high-profile place she’d come out yet. She was nervous, but felt like it had to be done. The backlash was immediate.  

Of the 10 public speakers on non-agendized items, eight were there to attack Durney. In fiery and condescending language, commenters quoted scripture, speculated that Durney may have been a victim of rape, commented on her anatomy and repeatedly alleged she was mentally ill or may have come out due to trauma from the death of her wife. One woman called Durney an “abomination.” 

All eight demanded she resign.  

This wasn’t Escondido’s first conflict about gender politics. In 2023, two teachers at the city’s elementary school district sued over a policy that required they use students preferred pronouns and not disclose the information to parents. 

On their face, the comments at the Aug. 5 meeting would seem to run afoul of the district policy that prohibits “discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying,” based on a number of characteristics, including gender identity and expression. But in an email, Escondido Union spokesperson Rita Alatorre, wrote that despite the policy, district officials are required by law to respect commenters’ right to free speech so far as they don’t threaten the safety of employees or board members.  

“A citizen’s right to speak freely about their elected officials during agendized public comment – regardless of whether or not we agree or disagree with what is said and whether it is offensive or defamatory –  is protected by the Brown Act, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and numerous legal precedents,” Alatorre wrote. 

The speakers weren’t at the meeting by accident. District Voices of Escondido – a newsletter that covers Escondido schools – reported that local conservative groups and anti-trans activists coordinated prior to the meeting. They’d also begun to mobilize to get attendee’s to the board’s September meeting. 

‘I’m Still Who I Am’ 

The situation has created some strange political bedfellows.  

Though she’s not a fan of some of President Donald Trump’s policies, especially his full-frontal attack on trans rights, Durney still describes herself as “basically a conservative.” She’s a registered Republican and even served as chair of the Escondido Republican Club a decade ago.  

Even after coming out, she said her political ideology hasn’t changed a whole lot. Neither have her priorities. She ran to elevate student performance, improve attendance and work on bettering math programs. She still wants to do all of those things. 

“I’m still who I am. But it has changed my perspective,” she said.  

But during the August meeting, Rosie Higuera, president of the North County California Republican Assembly, was one of the public speakers who railed against Durney, accusing her of suffering from a “mental delusion” from Satan. 

“The voters voted for you as a man and now you have become a fraud,” Higuera said. 

Durney ran unopposed in 2018 and 2022. 

Georgine Tomasi, president of the Escondido Democratic Club, on the other hand, doesn’t agree with many of Durney’s political beliefs, but still thinks she has a right to live her truth. At a recent meeting, her club drafted cards of support for Durney. 

“The vitriol that was exuded that night, I couldn’t believe it,” Tomasi said. “You’ve got to look beyond politics. This is a human being. This is her life journey. Who are you to tell her who she is?” 

Despite the attacks, though, Durney said she isn’t wavering. She’s flatly refused to resign and plans to run for a fourth term next year. 

“I still got my signs from 2014, and I’m just going to paint ‘Carol,’ over the name ‘Bill,’ and put them out there,” Durney said. 

‘It’s Not Bravery’ 

While only a couple dozen attendees showed up for August’s meeting, at Tuesday night’s, every one of the board room’s 90 seats was filled. Well over 60 people lined the room’s back wall, with even more spilling out into the lobby. 

Many of them came dressed in rainbow-clad shirts or wielded Pride flags. Tomasi got there early to hand out circular, neon green stickers that read “We see you Carol. #stop deadnaming.” The phrase describes when someone intentionally refers to a trans person by a birth name they no longer use. 

When Durney emerged from closed session in the board’s back room, she stared out at the room in wonderment. As she sat at the dais, she mouthed “Wow.” The nameplate in front of her seat still hadn’t been updated to her new name. 

Anti-trans speakers still showed up, but they were dwarfed by the number of attendees there to support Durney. In public comment after public comment, they castigated the board for not doing more for her, denounced the comments at the last meeting as shameful and accused Durney’s fellow board members of helping to gin up the opposition. 

“To be honest, I’d prefer not to be here speaking at all tonight but due to the vile, offensive, hateful and disrespectful comments lodged against Carol Durney … I felt compelled to,” said Michael Sovacool, a teacher at Orange Glen High School. “Carol, you and I haven’t agreed on much over the years, but that matters not when it comes to respecting you as a human being.” 

Durney was clearly emotional at times, dabbing away tears every now and then.  

When the marathon public comment period concluded, attendees began to filter out of the board room. Some remained scattered throughout the room, at times waving the miniature Pride flags they’d brought. 

Then came the board members’ reports. Several spoke about Durney, and the crowd that had gathered. 

Trustee Christi Knight said the board had been in a bind during the last meeting. They couldn’t silence the commenters despite how horrible it was to sit through them, or respond, but said that “silence does not mean agreement.” 

“Last month was a very difficult public comment period to sit through,” Knight said. Turning to Durney, her voice wavering, she continued. “This is a person I have served with for almost 13 years. You’re my friend. You look a little different, but I see the same person.” 

Board President Bob Weller struck a different tone. He and his wife Mary, an event coordinator for a Christian organization who speaks frequently about “radical gender ideology,” work with children who deal with gender dysphoria, Weller said. 

“Trustee Durney has every right to present however he wants and I’m not opposed to that,” Weller said. “I look forward to having more dialogue because as we speak about it, more truth will come out.” 

After the meeting, Durney said she was blown away. She’d known some people were planning to come but had no idea it would look like this.  

“Tonight was a whole lot better than last week,” she said wryly.  

She’s still working through some challenges, like getting the officials to change her name on the district website and the nameplate on the dais. She said they’ve told her they were waiting till her legal name change is finalized.  

Still, she’s optimistic. She feels like she’s inured herself against the attacks. She sat up on that dais and took the abuse already, she said. Now, it’s “sort of like water off a duck’s back.” 

Besides, the support at the meeting, and the emails, letters, text messages and phone calls she’s received, all feel like evidence that Escondido had her back. In those messages, though, people often heap on praise, calling her courageous, brave and strong. She understands what they mean, but in her view, they get something wrong about her experience. 

“I don’t feel it’s that brave, I just feel like I’m being me. I’m so happy being able to walk out the door wearing a freaking dress,” Durney said. “I realize I’ve got to take the shit and get beat up, but it is so worth it. To me, it’s not bravery, it’s joy.” 

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