Beyond Brownsburg: How Indiana schools treat transgender students

Arika Herron | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption What does being transgender mean? People who are called "transgender" have a gender identity or expression that differs from the gender typically associated with the sex that they were assigned at birth.

Aidyn Sucec wanted high school to be a fresh start.

After years of working through anxiety, unhappiness and feeling “off,” he’d finally figured out what was bothering him.

Born a girl, Aidyn felt he was actually a boy.

"I knew it didn't feel quite right to be addressed as girl," Aidyn said. "It wasn't until i started questioning why that was... (that I realized) I'm probably not a girl."

He worked with a therapist, joined support groups and by the time middle school was coming to a close he’d chosen a name – Aidyn – that fit better than the one he was given at birth.

So, that fresh start at high school meant entering school as a boy, rather than a girl, for the first time — transitions that schools across the country are confronting with increasing frequency and little guidance or consistency in how best to balance policies to meet the needs of some of their most vulnerable students against the concerns of those who don't always agree with or understand them.

More: Brownsburg teacher says he was forced to resign over transgender policy

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In an informal survey of school districts around Central Indiana, IndyStar found inconsistent approaches — with many districts saying they handle such instances on an individual basis, rather than with set policy.

For Aidyn's family, that meant visiting Brownsburg High School the summer before he started there to discuss getting his name and gender changed in the district’s online record management system.

"It came to everybody's awareness, includng Aidyn's at the end of eighth grade," said Aidyn's mother, Laura Sucec. "We contacted the principal at his eighth-grade school and his teachers. I think they were all supportive but lacked the framework of how to address the situation and how best to help Aidyn.

"They'd all known Aidyn for the previous three years under his dead name. It was different for them to retrain their brains and think about him as a boy. That's one of the big things that prompted us to reach out to the administrators at Brownsburg (High School). We were hoping for a fresh start so teachers wouldn't have to struggle with knowing him one way and then figuring out how to address him differently."

Sucec said Brownsburg was great to work with – accommodating, understanding and supportive.

With the help of Sucec and several other families with transgender students in Brownsburg schools, the district drafted new guidelines for how schools would handle various issues that transgender students can run into at school – things like name changes, pronoun usage (he/him rather than she/her) and bathrooms.

A bitter divide

Nearly a year after the district quietly rolled out these guidelines for teachers and staff, the issue boiled over at a recent school board meeting. Several hundred community members attended the meeting as a teacher who had refused to call transgender students by their chosen name (rather than the name they were given at birth) was appealing to the board to keep his job.

Orchestra teacher John Kluge said he’d been forced by the school district to resign, even though he wanted to keep teaching in the district. Kluge said calling transgender students by their chosen names went against his religious convictions, so he called all students by their last names.

The meeting devolved from a debate about Kluge’s job, though, to a referendum on the district’s approach to transgender students – especially the allowance for students to use the bathroom of their choice.

Landon Chapman said he’s not comfortable with students who were born male being able to use the same female restroom as his daughter.

"Why is it that parents weren’t notified?" he asked the board.

He called for a public vote on the guidelines.

Families of transgender students say the district’s attitude has been nothing short of transformative, though, for their kids. Jessica Joslin, whose transgender son also attends Brownsburg, said she and her husband have seen a huge change in their son since they started using his chosen name and pronouns.

"We do think the pronouns and the recognition of the name change is really, really important to take care of some of the disobedience problems with these kids," Joslin said. "They view it as a lack of respect."

The bathroom debate

This rub between parents who would take their kids out of the school system rather than let them use the bathroom with transgender kids and parents who say the policy is literally saving young lives is what schools around the state and country are dealing with, often for the first time.

Lisa Tanselle, general counsel for the Indiana School Boards Association, said she is getting questions around policies and practices related to transgender students in schools more often.

“It’s a more frequent phone call,” she said, “maybe once or twice or month. The issues have been things like access to restrooms and locker rooms, name changes, how we refer to the student."

“I recently dealt with graduation issues," Tanselle said. She worked with schools on what names to read during the ceremony and what robes to allow students to wear in situations where male and female students wear different colors or styles.

This isn’t necessarily because there haven’t been transgender students in Indiana schools before this, but instead it's more likely because they just weren’t "out" in school.

Today, it’s estimated that there are 150,000 transgender youths between the ages of 13 and 17.

A study from UCLA’s Williams Institute that revised upward the estimated number of transgender adults in the United States found that younger adults, ages 18 to 24, were more likely than older ones to say they were transgender, reflecting a growing awareness of transgender identity.

The study estimates that as many as 1.4 million adults in the U.S. now identify as transgender, twice as many as earlier estimates.

This suggests that schools will only need to navigate the needs of transgender students more often. The U.S. Department of Education attempted to provide schools with guidance during the Obama administration. The “Dear Colleague” letter instructed schools to allow transgender students to be able to access sex-segregated facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity. It was rescinded last year.

School policies vary widely

Schools are all over the map on how they approach such issues.

Most schools that responded to IndyStar’s survey said they tend to handle accommodations for transgender students on a case-by-case basis.

Lawrence Township Schools allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice and be called by the names and pronouns they choose. Hamilton Heights also allows students to use the names, pronouns and restrooms of their choice after consultation with parents, counselors and administrators. Accommodations are also made on an individual basis, Superintendent Derek Arrowood said.

Indianapolis Public Schools, the state's largest school district, also allows students to go by the name and pronouns "that correspond to the gender identity they consistently assert at school," even if that doesn't correspond to their gender at birth. The district also makes accommodations for restroom and locker room use, "with the goals of maximizing the student’s social integration and equal opportunity, including participation in physical education classes and sports, ensuring the student’s safety and comfort, and minimizing the stigmatization of the student."

The policy goes on to say that in most cases, "transgender students should have access to the restroom and locker room that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school."

Other schools, though, have taken different approaches. Pike Township Schools, for instance, provides access to gender-neutral bathrooms.

Earlier this year, a transgender student brought a lawsuit against the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation for not allowing him to use the bathroom of his choice. Instead, the district directed him to use the bathroom inside the nurse’s office, according to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

After several requests to use male restrooms were denied by school officials, the student alleged that he "is being caused irreparable harm for which there is no remedy at law."

A spokesman for the district told IndyStar at the time the lawsuit was filed that school officials were reviewing the complaint but believed the district was meeting state and federal requirements.

Legal precedent could say otherwise, though.

Court weighs in

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled in favor of Ashton Whitaker, a transgender student who challenged a Wisconsin school district's policy limiting his bathroom usage.

Whitaker wanted to use the boys bathroom, but the school created a "gender neutral" bathroom specifically for transgender students, according to court documents. The court found that to be discriminatory.

The decision has a direct impact on Indiana's public schools, which are covered by the 7th Circuit. When the ruling was handed down, Indiana Department of Education officials said the ruling will "drive guidance" on transgender students' rights in the future.

A spokesman for the department said it does not track districts' transgender policies, as they are locally determined.

That could change.

With two high profile cases in the state now, it’s possible that the state legislature could step in and provide schools with guidance or a mandate.

The conservative Indiana Family Institute has been involved in the Brownsburg case, helping the teacher in that case secure legal representation and petitioning for his reinstatement. The organization’s president, Curt Smith, said the organization isn’t currently advocating for any changes to state law but could see the General Assembly getting involved.

“We’re not prepared to say the legislature should do A, B or C,” Smith said, “but we’re learning about the dimensions of it.

“It’s far greater than we thought.”

Until then, schools across Indiana will continue to deal with these issues as they arise and as they see fit, which could result in vastly different experiences for transgender kids living in different communities.

"Being addressed properly at school on a day-to-day basis was something that was a huge step for me," Aidyn said.

Call IndyStar education reporter Arika Herron at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter: @ArikaHerron.

