Transgender Rights

Some good news from the feds: the U.S. Department of Education has just sent a "dear colleague" letter to school districts in Washington and across the nation reminding them of students' legal right to form gay-straight alliances (GSAs).

Recently, three Kennewick High School students formed a gay-straight alliance (GSA), the first among all Kennewick schools. They did so in the face of months-long opposition by some members of the Kennewick School Board to recognizing GSAs as non-curricular student clubs. Now, to its credit, the Kennewick School Board has voted 3-2 to give GSAs the same access to school resources enjoyed by other non-curricular student clubs.

Many students may not be aware of the extent to which schools are censoring and blocking their access to these sites. The ACLU’s Don’t Filter Me campaign has set up a useful quiz to help you find out if your school is filtering your access to LGBT webpages.  

Great news! In “recognition of different types of families,” the U.S. State Department has announced its decision to offer gender neutral passport applications. These revised applications, which become available next month, will replace the terms “mother” and “father” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” and “remove significant challenges for the two million children being parented by [LGBTQ] parents.” This is another positive step by the State Department in relationship to LGBTQ community; last year the department modified a previous rule that transgender applicants could not modify their passport gender designation unless they had undergone gender reassignment surgery.

The ACLU-WA was recently contacted by a transgender woman who experienced discrimination at the Ross Dress for Less in Lynnwood, Washington. While trying on clothes in the women’s dressing room, this woman was interrupted by the store manager, sternly told to put on her “regular clothes,” and loudly and repeatedly instructed to leave the dressing room area immediately. The ACLU-WA contacted Ross’ headquarters to explain that the Lynnwood store manager’s actions clearly violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

The benefits to students of playing high school and collegiate sports have been well-documented, from improved academic performance to better physical and emotional health.  In October 2010, the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Center for Lesbian Rights released a ground-breaking report that provides policy recommendations for high school and college institutions on the inclusion of transgender student athletes.  On the Team: Equal Opportunities for Transgender Student-Athletes was drafted after WSF and NCLR held a national think tank in Indianapolis in October 2009, bringing together medical, legal, and athletic experts from all over the country. The report contains the think tank’s policy recommendations about how to include transgender students in sports while taking into account the competitive contexts of high school and collegiate athletics, along with medical and legal concerns.  

Schools must protect students from harassment, and if they don’t, the federal government will have something to say about it.  That was the message sent by the White House and the Department of Education on October 26th when they issued new guidance designed to make clear that schools have a legal duty to protect students from harassment under existing federal civil rights statutes. Read more