From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/transgender-discrimination-in-schools-my-story
Our education system mistreats and bullies transgender students. I survived, but the institutions have to change
Alex Sennello
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 April 2013
When I graduate high school in June, I will receive a diploma signed by a school administration that has marginalized me. Despite the suicides of two queer students, my school leaders have done absolutely nothing to improve the lives of the sexually diverse and gender diverse youth in my community. To add insult to injury, as I walk across that stage to receive that diploma, I will be accompanied by a group of students who have treated me as an outcast because of my identity.
Despite all of this, I count myself profoundly privileged. Unlike many other young trans women, I have never found myself on the streets, been forced to have survival sex, or been incarcerated. I’ve found the resolve and been given the resources needed to get to the point where I can count on my fingers the number of weeks between the present and the moment when I indignantly grab my diploma. Even more significantly, I’ll be able to walk off the graduation stage with the knowledge that, come the following semester, I’ll be working toward an undergraduate degree.
While I was able to make it within the system, earning grades and test scores that got me into numerous universities, the current K-12 education model was not meant for people like me. Consider the recent case of Coy Mathis, a transgender six-year-old girl whose school would not allow her to use the girl’s bathroom or George Zamazal, a transgender girl who had to involve the ACLU in order to just wear a dress to prom.
Those are the stories that make the news, but there are plenty that do not. For the majority of us, we go on to be successful despite our state-provided educations, not because of them. As you can imagine, we deal with marginalization, cultural erasure, minority stress and overt acts of hostility from students, staff and family – things that are in no way conducive to the health or academics of any student. To those young people who were unable to find a way through it all, no blame should ever be levied.
Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/transgender-discrimination-in-schools-my-story
