Maine schools must provide a safe environment for all students, including transgender students. Those who have a gender identity different from the sex they were assigned at birth are not being given enough protection, let alone the type of welcoming atmosphere that encourages learning.
Some schools have shown leadership by working closely with transgender students and their parents to ensure their needs are met. They have encouraged the creation of student groups to celebrate diversity and made clear that derogatory language is unacceptable. But too many schools have not taken steps to end verbal and physical harassment.
A continuing legal battle over an Orono school prohibiting a transgender child from using the girls bathroom has drawn attention to the experiences of transgender students in Maine. The case has highlighted how little public understanding there is of the best ways to support transgender students’ education.
Nearly nine out of 10 transgender students experience verbal harassment at school because of their gender expression, according to a 2009 study released by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. More than half experience physical harassment, and more than a quarter experience physical assault. The attacks often result in transgender students missing more school and receiving lower grades.
More enlightened policies and protection — similar to those that help to improve school climates for gay students — will require schools to be proactive. Leaders should not wait until an act of discrimination occurs to change the rules. The Maine Human Rights Commission’s draft guidance on sexual orientation policies is a good place to start.
Ensuring equal treatment means addressing certain issues. Here are some of many ways schools can make sure they treat transgender students with respect:
• Language. Students and teachers’ language sets a school’s tone. Adults should correct students who say “that’s so gay” or use other ostracizing phrases or words. Harassment — including cyberbullying — on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal. Sexual orientation is legally defined in Maine statute as a person’s “actual or perceived heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality or gender identity or expression.”
• Positive representation. Schools should not make the gay or transgender experience invisible. One way to do this is to establish gay/straight alliances or offer diversity programming. When students see administrators and facility supporting gay and transgender students — or even acknowledging their existence — they know bullying isn’t tolerated.
• Bathrooms. Transgender students should have access to bathrooms that respect their gender identity, though for some this could mean single-stall bathrooms. It is not OK to force transgender students to use rooms that correspond to their assigned sex at birth.
• Names. Forms should have a space for a “given name” and a “chosen name,” and school IDs should reflect the chosen name. (The policy also could be helpful for students with divorced parents, who go by a different last name than their legal one). Staff should refer to students by the names and pronouns they desire. If a student hasn’t authorized disclosure of information that reveals his or her transgender status, school staff must not disclose it.
• Housing. At residential high schools and on college campuses, having a floor or wing of a dorm that is designated as friendly to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people — and their allies — helps keep students safe.
It’s not known how many people are transgender, but the National Center for Transgender Equality estimates it’s between 0.25 percent and 1 percent of the population. Feelings about one’s gender are usually set early in life and do not change — though establishing a gender identity can be a dynamic process. Students cannot be asked for “proof” of being transgender, and no medical diagnosis, surgery or hormone replacement therapy is necessary to be transgender.
What is necessary is for educators, legislators and neighbors to be more understanding of transgender students, ensure they are treated with respect and create the type of environment most conducive to learning.
Really? Who cares?
A ridiculous article for a ridiculous society we live in now. Things are out of control. Another 4 years of liberal empowerment.
I gave you the like, BUT equating out “out of control” society is kind-of dishonest. Republicans and Democrats have bent over backwards doing the politically correct dance.
Of course political correctness is never even or fair. Our current supreme court has six Catholics and three Jews. The U.S. protestant majority has no representation on the Court. These judges were appointed by Reagan (R) Bush (R) Clinton (D) Bush (R) and Obama (D)
“It is not OK to force transgender students to use rooms that correspond to their assigned sex at birth”
This is absolute lunacy. What about the normal children who don’t want a member of the opposite sex in the same bathroom with them? Just another reason to homeschool your children and keep them out of the public schools. They have become a breeding ground for the sexually and morally perverted.
There’s nothing “sexual” or “moral” about being transgendered, it’s a medical condition. Blaming children for their medical conditions is pointlessly cruel. Would you suggest other children be allowed to discriminate against disabled kids? Children won’t be bothered if they are not taught to fear & revile difference.
We used to think that people with seizures were possessed by evil spirits or the devil and “treated” them accordingly.
Morally perverted? Are we talking about transgendered kids, or the parents who teach their kids to fear or hate them?
“Adults should correct students who say ‘that’s so gay’ or use other ostracizing phrases or words.”
“That’s so gay” is an expression that has been around for years and has nothing to do with homosexuality, at least not in my experience when I was in high school more than 20 years ago. It simply means “that’s stupid,” with an indication that something hasn’t been thought through.
We walk a very dangerous line when we start focusing on words and phrases instead of context and behavior.
Is the editorialist suggesting we abolish “gay apparel” from “Deck The Halls”? Or try to abolish “insane” or “crazy” when those words are used merely as expressions and not actually targeting students who have a mental illness?
Agreed…I’ll correct my kid when they take queer eye for the strait guy off the bravo channel.
You can start correct your “kid” the shows last episode was 2007.
“Gay” as a synonym for homosexual was already in common use 20 years ago, so I think you may be confusing chicken & egg here. The origin of the slur was anti-LGBT whether or not you and your fellow children knew that.
So what if it was? But the phrase “That’s so gay” really had nothing to do with sexuality. Geez, one of my best friends in high school would use the phrase to refer to a silly school policy or what he thought was a silly team rule. He most certainly wasn’t referring to the principal or the coach as a homosexual.
“That’s so gay” rarely ever refers to a person, but rather to an abstract concept one finds silly.
“But the phrase “That’s so gay” really had nothing to do with sexuality.”
The phrase has everything to do with sexuality.
no it doesn’t it is the problem with polictically correct. Gay, before meant happy, evenin songs it was. Same as queer meant odd. Unfortunatley if you say somethiing is queer, they will be all over you because it is a no-no. Even though you meant that it was odd, and nothing to do with sexuality, and the sam with gay.
Pray tell, how does “gay” as in “happy” mean “stupid” then?
I assume your next argument will revolve around “f*g” and “f*ggot” simply meaning sticks or in England, cigarettes, along with the claim that they are not therefore derogatory, either.
It depends on the intent of the person saying it.
“Don we now our gay apparel.”
Are you saying “Deck The Halls” is a homosexual Christmas carol?
Do you ever use “Welsh” as in “to welsh on a bet?” (Anti Welsh) or refer to a police vehicle as a “paddy wagon” (anti Irish) Do you use “Jew” as a verb as in the phase “I’m gonna Jew that used car dealer down?” (anti Jewish) Here in Maine I’ve heard “What are you French” when someone does something stupid. “He’s a Scot” refers to someone who is cheap,
Everyone has got a slur, and most of them still in use, “Wetback” (Hispanic) “Towel-head” (Muslim) then there are the slants, slopes, chinks and nips (eastern Asians). dot-head, hinie, bible-thumper, Oakie, honky, wop, frog, hillbilly, square-head, mick, savage and dozens more just waiting in the wings.
Get used to it… toughen up. Living with people of diverse background is difficult… get used to it.
Said with massive gobs of privilege…
Hmm, so lets apply this logic elsewhere. The word n*****.
“That’s such a n***** thing to do!”
“You’re a n*****”
“N*****, dude”
Would you think the person saying this was a racist?
What does the G in LGBT stand for?
Ok here we go…once the gay marriage thing passed its on to bigger more controversial topics that pertain to gays.
When will our education system start focusing more on those children who show extreme academic achievement and give them the attention they deserve by offering more academia choices. Rather than worrying about what bathroom a disturbed and gender confused kid uses.
Wake up people! The children who are achieves will be the generation that keeps our country moving forward not the ones who are afraid to go to the boys room.
Transgender people are not necessarily gay. They are people whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex assigned to them at birth. This may have little or nothing to do with sexual orientation.
When children are afraid of school, especially through bullying, this limits their ability to achieve academically. If children enjoy school, they will do better. So anyone in favour of academic achievement should support any move to make school more welcoming & less threatening to pupils.
Your comment seems to indicate that higher achieving students and transgender kids are mutually exclusive. As the parent of a bright and high achieving transgender person, this bothers me. Gender identity has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Although, having said that, I am sure there is a correlation between bad grades and kids being unsupported, but that wouldn’t be limited to just trans kids but any kids.
So what you’re saying is that the schools need to focus more on the students who are doing really well, rather than the students who are being bullied and marginalized?
What
“Transgender Students” have issues. They obviously have some mental problems and should be segregated. This is so stupid it is unbeleivable. Enough PC bull. You are born a man, you are a man. Born a woman, you are a woman. There is no third choice.
Are you saying that people with mental health conditions should be segregated? That’s rather a large proportion of the population.
Don’t be a fool. If you have legitamet mental issues thats one thing, but to design a system around a few misguided individuals who are not even intelligent enough to understand the difference between a man and a woman is a bit too much. Not my tax dollars. Not around my children.
this is not a mental disorder nor a confusion about organs if you dont understand what gender identity dysphoria is read up on it. Segregation is discrimination!
Gender identity disorder is a legitimate diagnosis according to the DSM IV. Yes, you really do believe that people with mental health diagnoses should be segregated.
I do not, but believe they should use the correct gender bathroom, or a separate one.
They are fighting to use the correct gender bathroom right now. You should support them.
Ah, but necader, then who is next? Separate out the gays? And of course, since you are so against kids with “mental problems”, every one of those ADHD kids need to be removed from class, too. And the bullies, since they have anger issues. Oh, and the physically challenged. Let’s keep going…any kid who has been abused in any way is bound to have some “mental problems”, wouldn’t you say?
Insofar as, “born a man, you are a man. Born a woman, you are a woman”…your ignorance of the biological diversity within the human race is *staggering*. Let’s go for an extreme example: I assume you’ve never heard of people having intersex conditions?
From a January 1, 2013 article in “Socialism Now” hailing the Obama regime’s executive order regarding “Acts against humanity”:
“It [is not longer permissible to use] certain labels, slurs and terms of disparagement once commonly accepted but now considered pejorative, e.g.: the custom of implying ‘perverse’ sexual behavior to Citoyennes or groups of Citoyennes of the same Gender Modality[1], denigrating them as “Homosexuals”, “Gays” (pre-CLN context), “Lesbians”, “Sodomites”— and/or worse; the vilification of Abortion (archaic) and Euthanasia — vis à vis the efficacy of pro-choice and mandated Sabbaticals[2] — as acts of “Infanticide” and “Murder”; and the disenfranchisement of competing world-view philosophies, such as Paganism, Satanism and New Age, as reprehensible, cultic alternatives to Puritanism.”
And the number of the “Executive Order” would be what?
Maybe we are being hasty. This could lead to transgender tourism. People will flock to Maine to use the third bathrooms. The ones with a “?” over the door.
Well, that would be good for the Maine economy, wouldn’t it?
True, We are in “anything for a buck” mode these days. Why let morality stand in the way of profit?
I am also very worried about the USA.
To make America a nicer place again, we all need to study hard, work hard, and save our money, among other things.
Transgender people aren’t confused. We just have a medical condition. Being unfair to people with a medical condition won’t make America a nicer place.
confused because people make them confused.
What does that mean?
While some seems reasonable enough, some crosses over into absurdly PC.
Trans people have a medically treated condition. The American Medical Association agrees. The American Psychiatric Association agrees. The EEOC and a number of State supreme courts agree, to the point of declaring that Title VII applies (“discrimination based on change of sex is still discrimination based on sex”). Which means that Title IV likely applies as well (sex discrimination prohibited in education).
It’s really simple. Back in 1994 a small study of brains (Zhou, et all) found a site that was sex-dimorphic (statistically different between men and women). Trans people had..you guessed it, the form opposite expected based only on their genitals (the only thing a doctor bases your sex assignment on in his 2-second assessment at birth). Since then the original study has been verified and greatly fleshed out. 20 such sites in the brain are now known, as well as skeletal, hormonal and other features. Turns out that in many cases, it was the genitals that developed “wrong”. So, to discriminate against trans kids is to discriminate based on a medical condition.
All other kids are called by their chosen name in school.
All other kids are referred to by the pronouns with which they identify.
All other kids are allowed to use the bathroom and locker room with which they identify.
To not do the same for trans kids & despite them having a medically treated condition is bullying. But it’s being done by the adults, the teachers and administrators (and let’s face it, pushed by parents with a certain set of values).
The other kids in a class or school, if not prompted otherwise by their upbringing or parents, tend to accept trans kids. Just like they hopefully do with anyone else who was born different.