By Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Summer is quickly turning to autumn, and the only proof of this beyond the local coffee shop pulling out their pumpkin spice is the doors of all the local schools being opened.
In California, this means the start of the first full year under AB 1266. The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in August of 2013, went into effect at the first of this year. Far right groups like the Pacific Justice Institute have tried to stop it with an unsuccessful repeal effort and – to date – no effective legal challenges. They even attempted to fabricate stories of harassment in order to scare people into supporting their efforts, which have failed.
AB 1266 requires schools to make sure that students are allowed to fully participate in their schools. They are given equal access to all activities, events, sports teams and, yes, facilities such as restrooms and changing stalls.
The latter, of course, is what the opposition latched onto. Once again we saw the "bathroom meme" of predatory youth using this law to gain access to opposite gender facilities for nefarious purposes. Such an incident has yet to ever be recorded.
While California is the first state to pass such a bill, it is worth noting that Colorado and Massachusetts have similar policies. It was also already in practice in many school districts in California before the bill was ever passed.
Yet while this is the law in California, and accepted in other states, it also is in line with policy nationwide: the United States Department of Education recently clarified protections against sex discrimination under Title IX. This clarification extended Title IX rights to transgender students nationwide.
Yet every year we see more and more tales of transgender people denied the chance of being prom or homecoming queens and others barred from events and yearbooks over appearance, among other issues faced by transgender students.
Most recently, it is the story of Rachel Pepe, a 13-year-old in New Jersey. Pepe initially attended Thorne Middle School in the gender she was assigned at birth. Her mother informed the school that her child would be returning as Rachel; the school reportedly told her that she would not be allowed back to school as Rachel. More than this, the school also told her they would not even attempt to find her an alternative school of any sort.
She would simply have to return as a male student, act as a male student and use her birth name in order to attend classes. According to the school, they were simply not equipped to handle a transgender student.
School officials told Pepe's mother, Angela Peters, that the school could not call her Rachel because it was not the name on her birth certificate. They also told her that the standardized tests used by the school require the "legal name and gender" of the student.
The school even went so far as to claim that they could not let Rachel attend as a girl because it would "upset the boy-girl ratio in the school."
There does not seem to be any legal basis to these arbitrary rules. Schools are not required to use the name on a birth certificate and routinely use nicknames and other alternatives. Likewise, standardized tests do not require a specific gender be expressed by the test-taker. I don't even think I need to touch the ludicrous issue of the "boy-girl ratio" at the school.
Thankfully, the story does not end here.
After Pepe and her mother went public with her story – and several LGBT rights organizations got involved – Middletown Township Public Schools Superintendent William O. George determined that he could and would work with his staff to accommodate Pepe, and staff will undergo "sensitivity training."
Now there's no question that this situation ran afoul of Title IX. It also did not square up against New Jersey's own laws around discrimination. Yet, if Pepe's mother had not spoken up on her behalf, this school could well have illegally denied Pepe her education.
Even with these laws in place, it is our vulnerable youth who may bare the brunt of clueless and/or malicious school officials. We may see cases similar to hers, or other rights violations by schools unaware or uncaring about the law. Even in California under AB 1266, it's quite likely that the Pacific Justice Institute and their ilk will try to force a "legal challenge" in a more conservative school district.
With the new school year starting, I hope that transgender students and their supportive families will be willing to speak out when they see their rights under attack. While I don't want to play into the hands of groups like the PJI, it seems more important than ever to speak out when you see your rights under attack.
Over the last decades, the transgender community has grown younger and younger. When I was first coming out, most of my transgender contemporaries were coming out in their 30s and 40s. This has changed dramatically, and the schools are our new battlefield.
We need to make sure that our trans siblings are able to gain a fair shake in schools, even with laws in place to protect them. We need to see them flourish.
So here's to the new school year, in a world where our students do have rights. Let's make sure they remain.
