While some in NC push against trans students, one school district passes new gender support policy | Opinion

Sitting boy-girl-boy-girl is a common way for teachers to arrange elementary school classrooms. It’s also an isolating experience for children who don’t fall into either category, and one that Anne Sutkowi-Hemstreet’s child has experienced. When a Spanish teacher asked the child’s elementary school class to sit according to gender, her child asked why.

“It didn’t make any sense to them because we don’t do that in our home,” Sutkowi-Hemstreet told me. It’s the way things have always been done; that doesn’t mean there’s a logic to it.

Sutkowi-Hemstreet is the founder of Durham’s Rainbow Collective for Change, a group that aims to support LGBTQ families and youth. Since February 2022, the organization has been working with Durham Public Schools (DPS) to adopt a gender support policy that would not only support trans students, but trans teachers and staff in the school system. In December, the policy was adopted by the school board.

“What we need to see is a place where people are affirmed and valued in our school buildings, and that was the important message that we wanted to come across,” Bettina Umstead, the Durham school board chair, told me.

The adopted policy is straightforward: don’t separate children by gender for things like seat assignments, dress codes and school ceremonies. It declares that students and staff are to be referred to by the names and pronouns that fit their gender identity, and provides steps for changing a student’s name on school documents.

Aside from the legal rigmarole that may come with a name change, the policy simply invites DPS teachers and staff to change behaviors that are easily changeable. Classes can be arranged by birthday or last name, instead of by gender. Instead of having high school seniors wear different-colored graduation gowns, they can simply pick a single color. As most teachers do at the beginning of the year, they can ask their students what they like to be called, instead of going by the name on the attendance sheet.

These simple changes don’t dramatically change the way others live their lives. They’re also the kind of changes that some North Carolina conservatives, like Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, have been fighting against for the last year. Even Durham, a deep blue city among deep red towns, saw pushback from public speakers at the work session where the policy was passed.

Bryan Geels, whose wife Courtney ran for U.S. House in the district, told the board that the two of them were concerned about a lack of focus on education.

“There’s a lot of these equity policies that [have been] passed in the last ten years, and I’m asking whether that is improving outcomes,” Geels said, adding later that the policy “needs to be for the benefit of the entire community at school.”

Other speakers quoted Bible verses. Some accused the system of converting students to “LGBTQ lifestyles.” Sutkowi-Hemstreet says she was surprised by the amount of pushback, considering the strong LGBTQ community in Durham.

“We live here because we know it’s a progressive community and we feel safe being out and being who we are,” she said, “and then our systems are not up to speed.”

What Geels and the other commentators fail to realize is that gender-diverse students also want to focus on their education, like any other child. That is impossible when they are constantly being told that their gender expression is not the “correct” one by politicians and bigots.

We must realize that the stakes have never been higher for any kids, thanks to the stressors of the last decade. The harsh reality is that more North Carolina students have considered suicide than ever before. In a recent statewide survey, almost half of LGBTQ students said they’d seriously considered suicide in the last year. A similar number of LGBTQ students said that they’d intentionally self-harmed in the last year.

The policy Durham passed is simple, controversial and life-saving. The school system will continue working on the policy to eventually include curriculum and instructional materials for educators. Hopefully, other school boards will learn from their example.