Many transgender students face discrimination as they transition into their new identity. They face many challenges as they try to fit in with their peers and grow and develop as a human being. They face challenges in schools and administrators need to be aware of the struggles they face as they require support and resources. Transgender students should be treated the same as other students in schools for a healthy youth development and prevention of bullying, violence, and suicide.
Transgender is a term used to describe a person who self-identifies as a sex other than their birth sex. This can be a child born as a male and self identifies as a female or a female who self- identifies as a male. Transgender is a person’s internal sense
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Administrators need to provide support, provide intervention, discipline, develop policies. They should create a no tolerance stand against bullying and harassment to ensure safety for transgender students . Every student needs protection from harm. All students have concerns about transgender students using locker room and bathrooms. It is important to help the transgender student not feel discriminated against and help them feel like a normal kid. Making them use separate bathrooms is nearing segregation. A suggestion may be to have a unisex bathroom, allow students to use the staff restroom, or change in the nurse’s office instead of the locker rooms until policies can be established. As the transgender youth transforms, principals need to communicate to other teachers of name changes and policies as to where the student should have restroom breaks. Refusing to help or accommodate the students’ needs can lead to self-esteem issues, depression, isolation and fear. Educating and encouraging other students to ask questions will help with feelings of uncertainty. Schools must provide support to help all students succeed (Ludeke, …show more content…
Educators should act as an ally for transgender students to help create a safe environment. When transgender students can feel and act like the gender they are self-identifying with, the more success they will have in school and in their future (Lindenberg, 2014). Sometimes all a person needs is for someone to listen to them. They are going through so much and sometimes feel alone as no one understands what they are going through. Allowing the student to talk is important; they may not have anyone else with whom to talk. This should be a safe place for students and not have fear that what they say will be made fun of or information about them will be repeated. In turn, transgender students should be open to questions to better help understand what they are going through and feeling. This will help educate other students and parents. Transgender students can be faced with isolation and rejection from family and friends (Glicksman, 2013).
Violence can have a negative effect on the health of youth and negative effects on education. Schools should encourage respect for all students and have repercussions for bullying to help promote a safe environment. They should also have safe places such as advisor’s offices where students can go to vent or express concerns. Schools should involve the community as much as possible in educating individuals on transgender and the trials they face so that the
It is a danger, both mentally and physically, to these transgender students attending an all women’s school. I believe Padawer does a fine job informing us as readers on a modern issue like transgender through stories of students at Wellesley College. They face problems such as bullying, humiliation, and sexual assault every day, and the problem is often neglected because they are
In order to answer whether transgender children be allowed to use the restroom they identify with I would first like to identify what transgender means. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary “The Medical Definition of TRANSGENDER.: of, relating to, or being a person (as a transsexual or a transvestite) who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one which corresponds to the person 's sex at birth.” I believe the knowing what transgender means is important because there are misconceptions about someone being transgender. This definition is also important as it helps support the pros and cons of my argument. I was confused about transgender individuals before doing research for this paper. However, based on the article “From Jack to Jill:
Transgender is an umbrella term, meaning an individual’s gender-identity does not align with their assigned sex at birth. Although transgender is a protected class in eighteen states, these individuals still face discrimination within the country and around the world (“Non-Discrimination Laws”). Transgender is not a lifestyle, no one chooses to live their life constantly being discriminated against. Transgender issues should be more educated on and their lives should be more protected.
According to a study by GLAAD, “…41% of transgender individuals attempt suicide, compared to 1.6 of the general population”. Potential causes are ignorance, lack of a friendly environment at school, and lack of non-discrimination laws and policies for transgender individuals. However, if schools and families would create a safe and discrimination free environment, that acknowledges transgender students and other children. The result would be a culture that teaches students and children to be mindful and respectful. If this happens, then there is potential that discrimination would decrease and social acceptance would increase.
Wong, Curtis M. "Transgender Teens Are Fitting In With The Aid Of School Officials, But Concerns Remain." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 19 May 2014. Web. 19 May 2014.
In paragraph 10, Fraas proclaims, “In another study of transgender K-12 students, 31 percent reported verbal harassment by teachers or staff for their gender. Another 5 percent reported physical assault assault by teachers and 3 percent reported sexual assault…53 percent of those lost to anti-queer hate murders in 2012 were trans women. ” Though Fraas uses statistics for this quote, any parent would feel awe struck by how mistreated these students are in school. This quote is important, because it can be anyone’s child and for that reason Fraas is able to get other college’s attention by sending them a message that parents want their kids to go to a safe school. If colleges openly accept trans students, parents will want to send their children to that college over an un-accepting college where these percentages are more likely to come
Many teenagers who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans are often bullied by their peers. In 2013 a National School Climate Survey showed that seventy-one point four percent of LGBT students were called gay or other derogatory terms often, fifty-four point six percent also heard comments about not being masculine or feminine enough. Almost fifty-two percent of students reported even hearing homophobic statements from teachers or other school workers. Sixteen point five percent of students were also physically assaulted by other students because of their sexuality. Because of these events, LGBT students were three times more likely to miss school than non-LGBT students, had a lower GPA, and had higher levels of depression. A girl I knew in high school named Donna identified as bisexual and I often saw her being pushed around in the halls and called countless terrible names. This soon lead to her feeling bad about herself, becoming depressed, and even self-harming by cutting and burning her arms. Donna also had to drop out of school and start being homeschooled because of the amount of bullying she encountered on a daily basis. The Trevor Project is a LGBT supportive organization that focuses on bringing awareness to homosexuality in young people, works to provide support for youths that are questioning their sexuality or are depressed because of the effects of bullying, and to prevent suicide among these youths. The Trevor Project explains that LGBT youths are four times more likely to attempt suicide than straight youths of the same age. This organization also tells us that young people who come out to their families and are rejected by them are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than people who were not pushed away by their families. These numbers are not only alarming,
Transsexuals, defined simply is a person who from the very core of there being feels like they are in the wrong orientation and transgenderism is that state of being when one's gender doesn't match those feelings. In the case of transgender children they usually feel like god made a mistake and in some case scenarios boys particularly try to alleviate the situation themsel...
“Qualitative study that paints a picture of what life is like for transgender people, Wyss (2004) interviewed seven transgender high school students and asked them about their experiences at school. … Many report that not just other students harassed them but that people they even considered friends would either help or join with assailants during physical attacks. Two of the students were set on fire in school. There were also constant threats of sexual assault, or coercive sex, or physical assault, both verbal threats and notes left in lockers.”
Imagine going through life believing that you were born into the wrong body. This is how a transgender feels as they go through life. A transgender is a person who whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to male or female sex. This topic is very controversial due to many arguments about the differences between the male and female physique. The natural biological differences between males and a females play a huge role in this controversy.
Many people are arguing over the transgender bathroom situation, even here in our very own school system, Grace Christian Academy. Some say one should use the restroom of his/her biological identity, while others say one should have the right to use the restroom they gender identify with. Now the issue is starting to arise in public and private school systems, since the law now states every school has to have at least one transgender bathroom available on school property. As a parent with a child in your school system, I would like to express my opinion on this matter with you. Even though this is a private Christian school, and I am a Christian myself, I do not see a problem with having a transgender bathroom on school property for multiple reasons. For example,
Bilodeau, B. (2003, October). Genderqueer: Understanding transgender student identities. Presented at the American Educational Research Association Research on Women in Education Annual Conference, Knoxville, TN.
No one wants to feel like they do not belong or like they are not cared for. Transgender people are just like everyone else and deserve to be treated equally to cisgendered people. According to Sam Killerman, being transgendered means living "as a member of a gender other than that expected based on sex assigned at birth." This definition is extremely important because a transgender person is still a person.
In the United States, more than 700,000 people have identified themselves as transgender. These statistics include people of all ages from the children to the elderly. In several surveys conducted in U.S. schools, several children were identified as transgender. For instance, in a 2015 survey in Dane County, 1.5% of the students were transgender (Hoffman). With the revelation, there is a call for unisex bathrooms to accommodate all these students. For example, a nine-year-old student was denied access to the female bathroom in Queensland (Hosking and Sun). This shows that transgender people sometimes go through a hard time; especially in societies where being a transgender has not been accepted. Statistics show that transgender people often become victims of bullying. For instance, 22 women were murdered in 2015 due to being transgender (Goodyear). Additionally, a report by The National Transgender Discrimination Survey shows that more than 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide because of the lack of acceptance in the society (Grant, Mottet, and Tanis 2). Although unisex bathrooms will not eliminate transphobia, it will be a start to ensuring their acceptance in the future. Stereotypes associated with transgender people will be crushed at an early age, giving an opportunity for their acceptance in the
Transgendered individuals face an incredible amount of hardships due to their identity. So what exactly does it mean to be transgendered? According, to Human Rights Campaign transgender is an umbrella term for individuals whose gender identity differs from what was assigned to them at birth it is about their gender identity. Transgender deals with gender identity; being born female or male at birth, but identifying with the opposite gender assigned at birth. The acts of violence against transgender individuals are extreme and hard breaking. People of trans continue to face discrimination and oppression on a daily basis. People of trans are often neglected by society and sometimes even by their own loved ones. Additionally, the suicide rate among the trans community is very high due to bullying and rejection they face.