An attempt from a coalition of conservative groups failed to get the 504,760 votes necessary to put a measure to repeal the new transgender students’ rights law on the fall ballot. This is good news for students in one state, but other transgender students in the U.S. don’t have the same equality. At the same time that California passed the law, the University of North Carolina voted to ban gender-neutral housing on all 16 campuses.
In Colorado, Coy Mathis, a six-year-old transgender student, can now use the girls’ bathroom, but Pennsylvania’s Red Lion Area School District refused to read transgender student Issak Wolfe’s preferred name at graduation or list the student as a prom queen candidate instead of king. The Transgender Law Center reports many cases of discrimination about gender non-conforming students who are forced to use a secluded or faraway bathroom, prohibited from using other school facilities that match their gender identities, and banned from taking part in school sports and/or extracurricular programs. Six percent of transgender youth have even been expelled from school for gender identity/expression, and another 11 percent lost financial aid. Other statistics are even worse in the educational institutions’ persecution of transgender youth.
Transgender students are somewhat protected by laws in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina. Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, and California allow transgender and gender non-conforming students legal rights in sports’ participation according to their gender identities.
The U.S. Department of Education issued a letter four years ago clarifying that Title IX protects transgender students from gender-based harassment and discrimination. Yet the law can take a long time to protect these vulnerable youth.