Marin Independent- Journal, CA, USA

Parents irked by policy allowing transgendered access

Rob Rogers

Posted: 12/09/2008 12:53:23 PM PST

Two San Rafael parents are upset by a school policy that allows students who identify as a different gender to use the restrooms and locker rooms assigned to that gender.

Mark and Elizabeth Swanson say the rule creates the potential for students to be placed in uncomfortable situations.

"This policy provides the opportunity for boys in a junior high school setting to have to change in the midst of a young woman, from whom they would be separated only by a curtain," Mark Swanson told the district board at its meeting Monday. "I'm in favor of protecting the dignity of transgendered individuals. But that creates a difficult situation for those boys. It imposes upon their modesty and privacy."

But San Rafael school officials say the policy is in keeping with state law, which treats gender and sexual identity as protected statuses. Unless students would be subject to "unavoidable nudity," they could be asked to share a restroom with a student who is biologically of the opposite sex.

To do otherwise would leave the school district open to lawsuits, attorney Dora Dome said.

"A subject's discomfort does not have the same legitimacy on a legal basis as supporting the rights of an individual," said Dome, the district's legal counsel. "Based on a substantial legal record, the district must allow access to transgendered students."

The Swansons accused the district of adopting the policy without consulting parents. The district adopted revised versions of many of its policies on Nov. 24, and provided interested parents with copies of those policies on a CD-ROM in advance of the meeting. Yet the district's policy on transgendered students was not included on the disc, even though Elizabeth Swanson had first requested a copy of the policy on Oct. 10.

School officials said the information was left off the disc in error, but that they intended to keep the policy in place.

Attorney Dome noted that the policy only applies to students who have made a permanent shift to another gender. In California, minors cannot qualify for a sex-change operation, but many express a different gender identity, often changing schools in order to begin new life as someone of another gender, she said.

Trustee Jon Loberg expressed some uneasiness with the policy - though he said it was similar to rules in place in Novato, San Francisco and the Tamalpais school district.

"If 500 students are affected by the actions of one, it's appropriate that we protect that one," Loberg said. "But those 500 students are affected also. How do we protect them?"

But Trustee Linda Jackson hailed the policy as one whose time had come.

"I've known folks who are transgendered and the agony they go through," Jackson said. "I'm proud that we live at a time when young people can be open and honest about who they are, and make the changes they need to make - and that as a school district, we make it so clear that we are a child-safe, accessible community."

Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at rrogers@marinij. com

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