The board and administrators at Palatine-Schaumburg Illinois School District 211 have ordered a transgender student to use a private locker room in order to change her clothes before and after physical education classes as well as for after-school activities.
District 211 claims in its mission that it challenges its students to "achieve their potential to become contributing, informed citizens capable of meeting the demands of a changing world."
While noting a complaint filed by the student with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights ( OCR ) and acknowledging possible ramifications to the district including the "potential loss of federal education funds" in an October newsletter announcing the decision, District 211 Superintendent Daniel E. Cates wrote, "the District is sensitive to the challenges facing transgender youth, and recognizes the strength and courage it takes to come forward to school officials and others as they convey their gender identity to the school community."
However, a volunteer at a local Pride Youth Group emailed Windy City Times ( WCT ) that the district has "a history of doing very little to accommodate their LGBT students. We've had many D211 students attend our group over the years. The stories of lack of support from the district schools doesn't change. One of my trans girls who goes to one of these high schools has spent the last six months trying to get her birth name off her ID.
"Finally, they agreed to using her first initial of her preferred name since it's the same as her birth name, but they wouldn't allow a name change. Luckily, she has a supportive parent who wouldn't back down, otherwise the district would have dragged their heels and made it very difficult, if not impossible."
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois ( ACLU ) LGBT and AIDS Project Director John Knight has been working with the young woman who has been denied use of the locker room for around two years. He told WCT that her classmates have mostly accepted and supported her.
However, Cates claims District 211 is acting out of a "responsibility is to provide an environment conducive to learning for all its 12,000+ students."
"It's particularly harmful for a student to tell her that she can't be treated like all the others," Knight said. "Young people want to be a part of what's happening in school in general and it's very painful to be told 'you have to go somewhere else. You are not welcome here.' It's fortunate that other young people are more open-minded than the administration, but it's really unfortunate that the school district has seen fit to impose their own views. "
The guidance provided in Title IX of the OCR states, "When a school elects to separate or treat students differently on the basis of sex in those situations, a school must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity."
It goes on to state that schools "must generally treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes."
Owen Daniel-McCarter, the policy and advocacy director at the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, told WCT, "The Alliance is working with a lot of school districts and really encouraging those districts to have a self-determination approach that people who are trans and gender nonconfirming know what works for them," he said. "I think we are seeing that trend as far as the interpretation of Title IX. If they are asking for accommodations that are consistent with their gender identity, they should be afforded them."
Daniel—McCarter also cited the Illinois Human Rights Act. "If you look at any of the protected classes, we would not say that any of those identities have to use a separate facility just because of that identity," he said. "So we can translate that very easily to what's required by law for transgender people and students in particular."
The psychological damage to a transgender student who is forced into segregation can be severe. "In some schools a separate locker room could entail a staff or nurses bathroom that is far away," Daniel-McCarter said. "The student must walk from one side of the school building to the other which is a physical disclosure of their identity to the other students and it can be very embarrassing."
Licensed clinical social worker and private consultant clinician Bonn Wade agrees. "It is harmful and may create a traumatic situation for the student," they ( preferred pronoun ) told Windy City Times. "By saying that the student cannot use the girl's locker room to change, they are creating an exception. It's a form of rejection. It's saying to the youngster that 'we will allow you to be female here but you can't use the female locker rooms.' It's discriminatory and it's unacceptable."
"For my client and other transgender students I've worked with it is an excruciating experience to be told that you can't join with your fellow students," Knight said.
In the newsletter, Cates stated that "the goal of the District in this matter is to protect the privacy rights of all students when changing clothes or showering before or after physical education and after-school activities, while also providing reasonable accommodations to meet the unique needs of individual students."
He also noted that "transgender students who don't want separate private accommodations are allowed to use restrooms in accordance with their gender identity, as there are private stalls available."
Wade said that such privacy concerns should therefore be unilateral. "If she is coming to the school as female and the school treats her as female in every other category of her life, why is this the exception? If they are going to do it for this particular trans girl, why aren't they doing it for every single female or male student?"
"What I've heard from some administrators is a concern about student safety—protecting trans students from violence, bullying and harassment in the bathroom as well as a concern about cisgender or non-trans student safety," Daniel-McCarter said. "But as far as I know there have been no reported cases of transgender students attacking or harassing cisgender students in the bathroom. We have to move away from these biases around the presence of transgender students somehow making other students unsafe."
One school district which has successfully moved away from those or any assumptions is Berwyn South School District 100 which partnered with The Alliance to create a fully comprehensive transgender inclusive environment.
Jeremy Majeski is the principal at Komensky Elementary School in Berwyn and leads the LGBT task force for the entire district of 4,000 students. "Last school year, I brought it to our district's attention that we needed to focus on more gender inclusive policies and procedures for our administrators to hang their hats on when issues came up in our schools," he told WCT. "We had a kindergarten student who was gender variant. We also have an eighth-grade student at one of our middle schools who has begun transitioning. Based on previous experiences with other districts I knew I needed support from the administrative team."
Majeski and his task force created a "protocol for schools to address the needs and concerns of transgender and gender non-conforming students to ensure a safe, affirming, and healthy school environment where every child can learn" and put it in place for the current school year.
The protocol lists "a clear plan for supporting the student's access to gendered facilities and school-sponsored programs that are consistent with their gender identity. This may include, but is not limited to, access to multi-stalled gendered restrooms, locker rooms, fine and performing arts programs, and athletic programs.
"We have at least one highly trained individual at every school in our district to lead a gender support team meeting should a transgender or gender issue arise on our schools," Majeski said. "We will sit down with the student and possibly his or her family and talk through every avenue of the student's day and how we can support the student feeling comfortable at school."
Majeski noted that the policy received the wholehearted support of the district's board and has been embraced by the students themselves. To his knowledge, there have been no problems in the locker rooms.
"We've had nothing but positive experiences and feedback from the students and families," he said. "We're working really hard to make sure that our curriculum and everything we do around the schools is open and reflective of all walks of life. That's very important to us. In order to make decisions within their schools, principals and administrators really need support from the top down. We're lucky to have that support in our district."
Meanwhile, support is something Knight continues to fight for his client and her family to receive in District 211. "I would love for this to end for my client, but we're in for the long haul if necessary," he said. "To place the burden of anyone's privacy concerns on my client is plain and simple discrimination. It seems to me [the board] is using really narrow, contorted assumptions of privacy concerns as pretext for what is really going on here which is a desire to treat my client differently. This is not just about access to the locker rooms, it is about sending a message to my client that she is not fully female and not like the other students."
For more information about the Berwyn South School District 100's transgender protocol, visit: www.bsd100.org/apps/pages/index.jsp. For more information on the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, visit: www.illinoissafeschools.org . The ACLU of Illinois' website is www.aclu-il.org .
