Laurie Frankel is a bestselling author and the mother of a transgender 10-year-old. She has only one transgender student to deal with, her only child, but as such, she has expertise to share with a large, urban school district like DMPS.
Recent studies estimate that 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender. In a population of 33,000 K-12 students, that would amount to about 200 people.
But how aggressive should a school district be in determining who they are? On the one hand, studies demonstrate that kids who fit under the LGBTQ umbrella are at significantly higher risk of negative consequences ranging from dropping out of school to suicide, so schools are right to reach out and be supportive. On the other, according to Frankel (the parent; not the author), the best thing that can happen to such kids at school is that they be treated as normally as possible.
“Kids deserve to be the center of their universe at home,” she said, “but at school nothing’s better than fitting right in.”
Jake Troja is the DMPS Director of School Climate & Culture, and he arranged for Frankel’s visit to the district’s administrative offices on Friday morning while she was in town as part of the Des Moines Public Library’s AViD series. Frankel spoke at the Central Library downtown on Thursday night. Her latest novel, This is How it Always Happens, centers on a transgender child, but is only loosely based on her personal experience as the mother of a girl who was born a boy. Besides the bestseller lists, the book has started to pop up in classrooms around the country.
The district is being proactive in several ways with regard to transgender students, according to Troja. It’s one more layer in the district’s overall focus on equity for all students.
“We’re in the process of providing gender neutral restrooms at all schools, K-12, and students have the option of self-identifying in Infinite Campus,” he said. “Also, our school counselors are trained to help parents who reach out for guidance in dealing with LGBTQ students and we created a stipend position for a GSA (Gender Sexuality Alliance) Sponsor at all secondary schools.”
But it’s a tricky thing to be proactively helpful without suggesting that trans students have something wrong with them.
Frankel recalled an incident on the eve of her daughter’s first day of first grade. Together, the family had decided that an identity previously confined to playing dress-up at home would carry over into a school wardrobe and persona. Required actions suddenly occurred to Frankel.
“I realized we had to go to the mall and get some school-appropriate outfits,” she said. “And I thought I should reach out to her teacher. I e-mailed her, thinking how much I didn’t want to be that parent who was asking for interventions on my child’s behalf before we even met, but I just thought she might appreciate a heads-up…and she immediately responded with maybe the greatest e-mail I ever received. She said she had training and experience with trans kids and that it was fine; that it was no big deal…”
And so it wasn’t. And still isn’t. Stay tuned for adolescence, puberty and the teen ages, all of which are developmental minefields for all manner of parents and children.
The Inclusion Revolution that’s in full swing at DMPS with regard to students across the spectrum of intellectual abilities has spread to another front: sexuality/gender identity.
“It’s a moral issue,” Troja said. “We have a responsibility to make our schools places where all students feel safe and welcome.”
Like a good novel, the plot thickens.
For more context on the issue of student gender identity and how schools deal with it, click on these links to essays by Laurie Frankel:
- People: “The Biggest Bully at my Child’s Elementary School is the Federal Government”
- New York Times: “From He to She in First Grade”
