Navigating Student Gender Identity Issues

Case Narrative

The news is filled with a variety of stories about the changing nature of gender. Gender was once a fairly arbitrary binary option, male or female. Recently, the termination of a Virginia high school teacher for being unwilling to use a student’s pronouns ¹ made national news when the teacher filed a civil rights complaint against the school system (NBC News, 2018; WSET, 2019). Today, modern physiological and psychological advances have changed the previous binary concept of gender. Social and mental health experts now offer a more complex view of gender. However, many systems including schools have long been organized along binary lines; boys and girls or men and women. Most public schools have two sets of athletic teams, one for boys and another for girls. Most systems have not been proactive in addressing transgender or nonbinary student issues until such students have evidenced themselves within the student body.

Middletown Public Schools were no different; historically, the district had not had anyone raise issues around nonbinary or transgender students. Dr. Juan Komodo was just settling into his first year as superintendent of the Middletown Public Schools. Previously, he had been the superintendent of a smaller suburban district near one of Ohio’s largest cities. The move to Middletown was a step up into a larger district. One of the Middletown Public Schools, a midwestern district of about 6,000 students, is Middletown Central High School (MCHS). At MCHS, a typical comprehensive high school of 1,200 students, several issues arose at once. The school resides in a socially conservative area within a midwestern state. Much of the population are active members of fundamentalist Christian churches whose tenants are generally opposed to homosexuality and other nontraditional gender roles. The school is one of six high schools in the county and the most diverse with 20% of the student population identifying at Black and another 10% as mixed race. Fifteen percent of the student population identifies as Hispanic. More than half of the students are eligible for free lunch through the federal School Lunch Program.

At the start of every school year, one of the student focuses tends to be on homecoming festivities and the election of the homecoming court. At MCHS, as in many schools across the country, students nominate their fellows to be voted on as Homecoming King and Queen. One more example of a binary choice. Girls campaign to be queen and boys for king. The director of secondary education comes into Dr. Komodo’s office to explain that MCHS has a complication this year. According to the director, Jane Ridgeway, the principal, Bob Scott, realized after he had already distributed the list of candidates that a gay boy with a unisex name enrolled himself into the list of queen candidates. The student and his teacher, George Stephans, developed the plan to do this as a publicity stunt. They were hoping to win and then call upon news outlets to publicize the election or potentially drag the school into controversy if the school officials denied his candidacy for homecoming queen. After speaking with the student and his parents, it is clear that Mr. Stephans encouraged the student to apply for the female side of the homecoming court and neither he nor his family were aware that Mr. Stephans contacted several news channels to alert them to the boy’s candidacy for homecoming queen.

Not long after hearing about the homecoming issue, the special education director, Robin Lange, knocked on Dr. Komodo’s door, stepped in, and dropped into one of the chairs at the small conference table in his office. Robin looked exhausted and started to explain a parent complaint she had just received. The mother of Gerry Davis had just called to complain that Mrs. Sarah Bryce had again called her son Jenny, his birth name, and reminded him “she was praying for her so she would get over this silly stage in her life.” Gerry had been publicly identifying as a boy for 2 years now and wished to be referred to Gerry in school. Gerry had always felt he was a boy and his mother kept him home for a year via home schooling to make sure Gerry really wanted to make this transition and to avoid the hassles that would most likely come up in middle school. However, Mrs. Davis felt unable to continue to home school her son through high school. In addition, she felt Gerry needed the socialization that is part of the complete high school experience. Mrs. Bryce had been reprimanded by Ms. Lange in the past, but the previous superintendent seemed to support Mrs. Bryce’s actions and wouldn’t support any significant discipline. Bryce would greet Gerry each morning as by his birth name and get him stirred up. This would then lead Gerry into a number of discipline issues where he would act out in response to the frustration of Mrs. Bryce’s refusal to accept his transition. Mrs. Davis was demanding that Mrs. Bryce be removed from working in any classrooms in which Gerry was assigned. However, in the past Mrs. Bryce had articulated she had the necessary seniority to select her assignment and she liked working with the MCHS special needs classrooms, where Gerry attended for resource help two periods a day. In the past, she had complained that she was being discriminated against for voicing her religious beliefs and would sue for discrimination if she was transferred. The previous superintendent and director of human resources had supported Mrs. Bryce over Robin. As Robin spoke with Dr. Komodo, she was clearly hoping for a different result.

In a brief review of the district’s policies, Dr. Komodo and Ms. Lange found little to help provide direction. The district had boiler plate harassment, sexual harassment, and bullying policies in place, but they had not been updated in several years. The policy manual was silent on any issues related to the concerns of transgender students, the use of chosen or preferred names, and other similar issues. There was nothing in writing about the homecoming issue that would require the queen to be a girl.

Dr. Komodo would now have to address both issues. At the same time, Dr. Komodo decided that he might as well address the potential issues surrounding both transgender and nonbinary athletes to take a holistic approach to the issues at hand. So, Dr. Komodo called in the athletic directors and found out that they didn’t have any policies in place to address those issues either. He asked them to reach out to the state high school athletic association and gather any guidance that they had on the issue. Doing a bit more searching, Dr. Komodo came up with several facets of policy that would need to be addressed:

Student Transitions: how schools confirm gender identity; help schools address gender literacy; understand the facets of gender, including body, identity, and expression as well as other social dimensions of gender.

Student privacy issues: how schools will address student identification and student records including name and gender markers, as well as how the school’s student information system (SIS) can be modified to address these issues.

How to address sex-segregated activities and facilities? What happens when a trans or nonbinary student wishes to go out for track, basketball, or another gender segregated activity? How are gender segregated facilities provided for nonbinary students or how can existing facilities be modified?

What professional development or trainings will need to be available to ensure faculty and staff will be able to act in an informed and supportive manner for all students? This would include addressing the issues around an individual’s personal beliefs and their conduct and/or performance as a school employee. Ensuring everyone knows what support resources are available for students, and establishing how substitute teachers are also trained to further understand concepts of gender and gender identity.

Dr. Komodo called his cabinet together to review the issues and asked each cabinet member for their input regarding the next steps to take in addressing these issues so all students feel safe and welcomed. Are they any issues he overlooked?

History of Transgender and Nonbinary Student Issues

According to the sample policy and emerging policy document developed by the U.S. Department of Education (2016), “every person is unique, so the need of individual transgender students vary.” There may be no more accurate sentence written about transgender and nonbinary students. Prior to the last decade, there were few resources to support such students and provide guidance to educators on the best ways to support students. The goal of our schools should be to meet the needs of each student, regardless of gender or any other form of personal identity. Given the often individualized nature of the needs of transgender or nonbinary students and the often small number of such students who are open about their identity, school districts will often need to make individualized plans for each student. However, that should not prevent or deter schools from putting appropriate policies in place to provide administrators and other educators with the necessary guidelines to base the development of plans to accommodate the needs of an individual transgender or nonbinary student.

According to GLSEN (2017b), more than 80% of transgender students and nearly 70% of gender nonconforming students have been bullied or harassed at school. The same survey shows that harassment based on sexual orientation and gender expression has decreased since 2007. Students in schools that have an LGBTQ+ -inclusive curriculum are about 50% more likely to feel safe in school as well. Overall, 75% of trans youth reported they didn’t feel safe in school. This is potentially the highest level of discomfort among any potential demographic group (Baker, 2018; GLSEN, 2017b).

Every public school that receives federal funding is required to protect student rights under Title IX. Title IX prohibits harassment directed at an LGBTQ+ ² student that is sexual in nature, and prohibits gender-based harassment, including protections for gender expansive students who don’t conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity. According to GLSEN (2019), Title IX does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Under Secretary DeVos, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education rescinded previous Title IX guidance regarding LGBTQ+ students. Therefore, it is important for schools to clearly articulate their own policies regarding these issues, especially in states that don’t provide some level of protection. At the time of this publication, there are 15 states which have laws in place that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and two other states that interpret gender identity to be a facet of sexual orientation and therefore protected (Human Rights Campaign, 2018; Movement Advancement Project, 2019).

Several recent court cases including Evancho v. Pine-Richland School District, Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District (Justia, 2019), and Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board (American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], 2019a) have all upheld a transgender student’s right to use restrooms appropriate to the gender they identify with, not necessarily the gender they were assigned at birth. In the Whitaker decision, the courts saw the school district’s concern that other students might be harmed by having to share restroom and locker room facilities as speculative, whereas the plaintiff experienced actual harm including suicidal thoughts due to his being refused the opportunity to use his preferred restroom (ACLU, 2019a; Justia, 2019). However, several of the issues that Dr. Komodo raised have been addressed historically. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Native American children were denied the use of their preferred names and were required to use Angelized names (Magagnini, 1997). We do not need to repeat that type of action. In addition, many schools provide the opportunity for children to provide a preferred name, whether a nickname or an Angelized name. Some Asian students have historically asked to use an “Americanized” name for social purposes but yet want their diploma and transcripts to show their actual Asian name. So, schools have the ability to keep multiple student names for those districts that require records to be based on an “official documented” name.

Some opposed to accommodating nonbinary or trans students feel this could lead to abuse of accommodations. The fear that a student may just say “Hey I feel like a girl today, so I am going to use the girl’s locker room” and the staff will allow the student to do so. In fact, a properly trained staff member should engage the student and work with them, the school counselor, and other school agents to develop a plan of support in which that student can discuss what is most needed to support them in their social transition and moving forward. The ability of the school to address issues proactively and have a plan in place can be of comfort to all stakeholders within the school.

Involving parents is a decision that school leaders will need to make depending upon the level of comfortability the parents have with the situation. Educators will need to consider the student’s perspective on the level of parental involvement as well. For information about how to involve parents, consider resources available from the ACLU (2019b) and the National Center for Transgender Equality (2019).

Teaching Notes

The concept of gender being a continuum as opposed to a fixed binary identity is a relatively new idea for many educators. Gender literacy is an important first step to ensure educational leaders are able to serve all students including those who don’t align with the masculine and feminine gender stereotypes that have been perpetuated by such cultural icons as GI Joe and Barbie. For many aspiring administrators, gender literacy may be a new concept for them to address or simply one they have not given much thought to in the past. The University of Minnesota Medical School (2019) defines gender literacy as “being able to name these gender ‘rules’ while at the same time being aware of what can happen if you don’t follow them in different cultures and subcultures.” This naming of concepts then allows one to externalize the “rules” and make informed decisions as to whether or not to follow them and to more intentionally see what impact these “rules” have on individuals who don’t conform to dominant cultural gender roles. There are a number of organizations that provide materials to assist educators in becoming gender literate. Some of those would include the following:

Instructors need to ensure that aspiring educators have the necessary vocabulary to communicate the issues with students, parents, and staff. University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education (2018) provides a good starting point for gender literacy vocabulary. The County of Santa Clara, CA (2019) also provides a glossary to support conversations to serve as an ally to a trans individual. That document is based on glossaries developed by PFLAG.

Once prospective educational leaders understand the basic vocabulary and tenets of gender literacy, exposing them to how schools can and should support trans and gender diverse students is the next step. The instructor can ask students to review a number of typical situations that may arise within schools and view those through the lens of the gender “rules” that they have previously internalized as natural. Again, there are a number of rich resources available for schools and school leaders to inform their practice in ensuring all students have a safe and secure school environment. Those include the following:

Another issue instructors should address is the difference between agreeing with a student’s gender identity and not discriminating against a student for who they are. It is important that educational leaders ensure that staff and students are allowed to hold onto their beliefs but at the same time learn to accommodate the beliefs and needs of others. The student is simply being true to their personal identity in a way that doesn’t conform to traditional gender rules. One key when discussing gender literacy and the need to separate personal beliefs from forcing a trans or nonbinary student to conform to another’s definition of gender is that being nonbinary is not necessarily a choice. It is the way someone is. This is no different from previous situations where many people identified that homosexuality was simply a choice and not a nonmutable facet of an individual’s personality. Educators need to be able to support all children and meet their individual needs. Instructors must work to ensure that aspiring educational leaders understand that these are complicated issues and not simply the result of a student choosing to “be a girl today,” as in the earlier example. Students who find themselves identifying as trans or nonbinary are often figuring out that identity and what it means to them just as those around them may be figuring out how to best support them. Educational leaders need to ensure support for the mental and physical well-being of all students including trans and gender nonconforming students.

From a curricular standpoint, some consideration should be given to how to integrate general literacy information into existing health education and sex education courses within schools. There are some excellent resources available to assist teachers in developing lessons to address gender issues like those provided by InterACT (2008): Advocates for Intersex Youth and the Trevor Project (2019). The Trevor Project includes a number of lesson plans for middle and high school classes that can be woven into existing health curricula. A free online module with video and support materials is available called The Lifeguard Workshop.

Class Activities

As a large group, in teams, or individually, the instructor may ask students to complete a basic knowledge quiz about trans and gender diverse individuals as a way of opening the conversation about gender literacy. One such example would be the Forge TSV quiz about LGBT people and sexual assault available at http://forge-forward.org/wp-content/docs/TSV-webinar-quiz.pdf. An online example is the ProProfs Test your Knowledge about Gender Quiz available at https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/quizshow.php?title=test-your-knowledge-about-gender.

After the opening conversation, or potentially in place of, or prior to a class session, instructors can ask students to watch and react to one or more of the following videos focusing on trans and gender diverse issues: If your university has support services for the LGBT+ community, you may invite them or a local trans support person who would be willing to help guide the conversation.

After viewing the video or videos ask students to discuss based on the following questions:

After those discussions, in small groups ask the class to develop a communications plan related to how to share the actions a school or district is taking to ensure it is a safe and welcoming environment for all students. Alternatively, what type of communications plan should a school put in place if a student comes to school and is expressing the desire to socially transition? How does the school communicate with staff, students, parents, and the wider community?

A class assignment based on the topic could be to ask students to review one of the policies identified by Dr. Komodo as needing to be updated in light of gender diversity and gender literacy and draft a revision to present to the Board of Education for approval including a rationale for the necessary changes as well as the revised policy itself. Another assignment could be for students to examine the policies in place at local institutions (or their own institution). In doing so, students should consider what policy or policies are in place, what measures may be lacking, and draft a policy update for their own school or a school in the local district. Sample policies are available (National Center for Transgender Equality, 2018).

For a more in-depth review of identity within the social context, instructors may wish to have the class participate in the Social Identity Wheel assignment from University of Michigan’s (2019) inclusive teaching initiative. Local universities may provide similar lesson content. These conversations provide an entry point to further discussion about identity in general.