The climate today for our LGBT youth, and especially for our transgender youth, is getting out of hand … and it's time we did something about it. We've all heard about or read the statistics, and many of us experienced it firsthand. Our youth can't get away from the incessant name calling, not to mention the harassment. It's bad for all LGBT kids, but for transgender or gender nonconforming kids it is always worse. Does anyone care that 90% of transgender students report feeling unsafe in school because of their gender identity or expression? Does anyone care that the dropout rate, the suicide rate, the homeless rate is disproportionately high for our transgender youth?
I've been trying to relate this to my own experience as a youth, and you know I just can't do it. The experience is entirely different for someone like me who transitioned much later in life. I was able to repress my identity and 'pass as straight' until I could no longer live with myself. I had already 'made it in the world' before coming to grips with my gender. But for transgender or gender nonconforming youth, 'passing as straight' is just not an option. It is impossible for transgender youth, or for little femme boys and little butch girls for that matter, to hide their gender identity.
I had the love and support of my family because I was able to hide my true gender identity and be someone I wasn't for them. But transgender youth often risk the loss of any family support they might have received … again because they cannot hide who they really are, especially from their own family. And when they get rejected, as more often than not is the case, they wind up with nowhere to go for support. And if they do find their way into the 'system,' be that an LGBT youth group or a DCFS home or anywhere in between, more often than not they are told that they should just learn to conform to the gender stereotype, and they would be OK.
The following is the experience of one transgender youth, from an interview in 'Hatred in the Hallways' published by Human Rights Watch, 2001. 'I had to quit school because the teachers were, like, 'you can't wear a dress, you can't wear your hair like that.' … It freaked them out, I guess. When I started dressing as a woman, they didn't know what to do. ...They started making up rules, like, you can't wear a dress in a way to interrupt class, so no long hair or makeup… I had to use the boys' restroom or the nurse's restroom, but if the nurse wasn't there, then I didn't go at all.'
When she entered the foster care system: 'They moved me from shelter to shelter. They're like, 'We don't want to confuse the other kids … . A lot of them refuse to take transgender youth. For the past seven years I've been dressing as a woman. But they're like, 'You have to cut your hair, you can't put makeup on.' Sometimes they tell me I can't wear a bra.'
This scene plays out over and over again in every major metropolitan area. And I have heard the stories repeated from just about every transgender youth I have spoken to in the Chicago area. Is there anything that can be done? Of course there is! And we could start with the schools.
In Florida, at the end of January, GLSEN and Equality Florida announced they had teamed up to kick off a massive organizing effort around the Florida Dignity for All Students Act. The grassroots effort began with training student activists to lobby their state legislators for passage of the Dignity Bill.
I expected the bill to be designed to protect gay and lesbian students from harassment, and not really dealing with other students. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the bill was broadly worded to cover 'real or perceived identity or expression of race, color, religion, national origin, marital status, sex or gender, disability or sexual orientation, on the basis of stereotypes of persons identified by these categories, or on the basis of association with others identified by these categories.'
What a powerful statement! Real or perceived identity or expression of gender, among other categories, on the basis of stereotypes. What a novel and completely inclusive way of talking about gender identity. And in a state that doesn't have a nondiscrimination law protecting on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and likely won't have one in the near future, going after safe schools is exactly the right approach.
There are several organizations in Illinois advocating similar safe schools or dignity for all students legislation. To these organizations, I say thank you… it's about time! Hopefully we can get as much momentum behind safe schools as we did behind the state nondiscrimination bill. We all need to care about our LGBT youth. We all need to care about our gender nonconforming youth. We need to care about our trans youth. … We are their family, and often the only family they have.
MirandaSt1@aol.com
