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School challenge: Transgender student is age 9

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canis_lupus Donating Member (213 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:27 PM
Original message
School challenge: Transgender student is age 9
From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

For school officials in Haverford Township, the challenge was daunting: What do you do when a 9-year-old student, with the full support of his parents, decides that he is no longer a boy and instead is a girl?
Parents of a third-grade student at Chatham Park Elementary School approached the administration on April 16 to ask for help in making a "social transition" for their child.

The Haverford School District consulted experts on transgender children, then sent letters to parents advising them that the guidance counselor would meet with the school's 100 third-grade students to explain why their classmate would now wear girls' clothes and be called by a girl's name.

Some parents objected. Eight called the principal to ask that their child not attend the session, and some posted angry messages on the Haverford Township blog.

"Why is the school introducing this subject to 8- and 9-year-olds?" wrote the parent who started the blog thread, which had been viewed more than 3,000 times as of yesterday. "Why were we not notified sooner. We received the letter today, the discussion at school is tomorrow."


http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/chester/20080503_School_challenge__Transgender_student_is_age_9.html
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dsc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:28 PM
Response to Original message
1. the last sentence is a fair complaint
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Maddy McCall Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:32 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. It may or may not be true.
It's possible that they received the letter earlier, but are just looking for any excuse to complain that will not make them look like bigots.
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Djinn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:29 PM
Response to Original message
2. what challenge?
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Maddy McCall Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:30 PM
Response to Original message
3. I wish the kid the best....
And I hope those closed-minded parents will soon learn to be more empathetic.
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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:33 PM
Response to Original message
5. Gender neutral school uniforms.
Trousers, either plain black, brown, khaki, or blue--or even blue jeans-- and a golf shirt with the school logo, with sneakers.

I think they're a great leveller, anyway.
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DumpDavisHogg Donating Member (255 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. That would be unconstitutional
Tinker v. Des Moines already had its say. The First Amendment means what it says about freedom of expression.
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Der Blaue Engel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:59 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. School uniforms are unconstitutional?
Could you elaborate on Tinker v Des Moines? I've not heard of this, and see school uniforms all the time, so this surprises me.
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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 10:21 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Not in all cases. They are unconstitutional "absent other considerations."
It's usually not hard to find "other considerations" especially if your school board and parents back it.
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NCDem60 Donating Member (228 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 11:23 PM
Response to Reply #8
13. Tinker v Des Moines had nothing
to do with uniforms. The school suspended students for wearing black arm bands to protest the Viet Nam war. They did not hold any demonstrations or disrupt in any way. The court upheld the right of the students to wear the armbands as a protected form of free speech.
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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 10:13 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. That's NOT the final say, though. That's the final say ABSENT other considerations.
Edited on Mon May-05-08 10:13 PM by MADem
Like public safety. Gang colors, that sort of thing. There are public schools that wear school uniforms, or an approximation thereof (blue trousers, white shirt, for example).

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/12/style.rules/

http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/policy_reports/dress_codes/statebystate.html

http://www.iir.com/nygc/gang-legis/gang_relatedclothing.htm
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Der Blaue Engel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. I find gender-specific uniforms incredibly offensive
I don't know why all uniforms aren't gender neutral.
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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 10:19 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. It took the military YEARS to make those skirts for the women the "optional" part of the uniform
package. For years, if you told your crew to show up in Alpha, the women would turn up in the skirts, and the lads in the trousers.

They finally swapped that around, in the Navy, anyway. The trousers are the mandated part of the uniform for the women now. Those skirts aren't such a good idea aboard ship. Too many perverts huddling under the ladders hoping for a peek...

The headgear is still different. I don't know why, it's an old 'tradition' that doesn't match the 21st Century forces, really, perhaps dating back to the days of complex "hair-dos" or something.
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One_Life_To_Give Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-07-08 07:30 AM
Response to Reply #11
17. Dinner Dress still Skirt Only
At least for the CG the Dinner Dress Jacket Uniform still puts females in skirts only. (And there is no uniform where the males can wear a skirt) And earrings have been eliminated as an option for males. But we have equality when it comes to wearing "Conservative Make-up".
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DarkTirade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-06-08 07:46 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. I find gender-specific dress codes or 'grooming standards' of any kind incredibly offensive.
At my last job I could never have been promoted in any way past the job I held... because I have long hair. Plenty of other managers, drivers, ect. had long hair. But it was okay for them because they were women. :\
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Der Blaue Engel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-06-08 10:49 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. I agree; that's BS
I also think neckties and $200 suits that men are required to wear for office jobs are asinine.

On a side note, I once delivered a resume to the front desk of an office in 115-degree weather while wearing a short-sleeved suit jacket with some nice walking shorts; not the sort of thing I'd wear to the office, just something a little nicer than the standard tank top and shorts one would normally wear in Tucson in the summer. It wasn't an interview. I wasn't meeting with anyone. I just dropped the resume by the front desk.

A few days later, my sister who lived across town told me that her husband worked with the husband of one of the women who had been at the desk, and she happened to recognize my name. This woman told her husband who told my bother-in-law that they would have to have a talk with me about "hygiene" if they were to consider hiring me, because they noticed that I didn't shave my legs.

:wtf:
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DarkTirade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-06-08 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. ... because body hair is unhygenic? WTF?
Edited on Tue May-06-08 04:36 PM by DarkTirade
:banghead:

*edit* On a side note, the different 'grooming standards' applied to facial hair kinda bit the Little Caesars I worked at a few years back in the bum. The guys weren't allowed to have facial hair... but there was no such rule for the women. And we had one manager who could grow more facial hair than I could at the time. :P
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hulklogan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-05-08 09:52 PM
Response to Original message
7. The school is introducing it to your children because you refuse to, stupid.
Some parents would rather their kids be 4 years old forever, and then wonder why they can't function as teenagers or adults. Transgender people are, have been, and will be a part of the human race. Pretending they don't exist is childish and foolish.
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galledgoblin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-07-08 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
18. third grade...
who cares what a third grader wants to wear?

part of me objects to the idea of an entire assembly by a school counselor explaining transgenderism to kids who still barely understand the basic differences between girls and boys, but a bigger part of me is enraged by those parents who think this is a problem... are they objecting to the assembly, or are they objecting to the innocent behavior of someone else's child?!
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Ellen Forradalom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-08-08 12:12 AM
Response to Original message
19. The only thing to explain is
So-and-so will now be known as a girl.
We welcome her into our school community as we welcomed him before.
Anyone giving her trouble will deal with the principal, just as when she was he.
Capiche?
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Solon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-08-08 01:22 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. The funny thing is that, for most of the kids in school, it won't matter much...
but only IF their parents are sane and don't make a big deal out of it. I find children are extremely adaptable to this type of scenario, if the adults in their lives are sane about it. One of my best friends, when I was a child, had two moms, the entire neighborhood knew it, and none of our parents made a big deal out of it, and you know what? I didn't even remember the significance of this, at all, while I was growing up. There was no "explanation", no sitting down to talk, just that my friend had two moms, and none of us kids thought about it much to begin with. Parents were obstacles to having fun, what did it matter if he had two moms, I don't even remember anyone noting it as unusual, and I live in a very Republican county!
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Ellen Forradalom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-08-08 10:38 AM
Response to Reply #20
21. You're so right.
We'd all be so much better off if everyone would just calm the fuck down about things that don't matter.
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undergroundpanther Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-09-08 12:31 PM
Response to Original message
22. in 6th grade I stopped wearing
Edited on Fri May-09-08 12:35 PM by undergroundpanther
female clothes except for certain situations,like my sisters wedding,and bras to hold them down(developed too damn early).Or if what I was wearing looked really cool.

I got all the usual gender slurs from students, but the school officials didn't seem to notice.I guess since I was a flamboyant gender boundary breaker they didn't even go there.
As for girl gym uniforms they were one piece zip up monstrosities. I was too bulky in my shoulders and too tall to fit into the largest size.I continually was ripping it if I reached up to nail a volleyball or flexed my arms too much.So I asked if I could wear the boys shirt and shorts.They said no, So I quit gym forever and failed it every year after that.I was not going to be the butt of jokes all year because of the damn uniform.
The teachers were stupid as a box of rocks.
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