Treat transgender youth — like my daughter — as human beings

Andrea Rashbaum | The News Journal

Andrea Rashbaum is a Delaware parent who was a member of committee that wrote Regulation 225, a proposed anti-discrimination rule from the Department of Education.

There is a lot of fear surrounding the acceptance of transgender children in our schools. What if we put down the fear, stopped saying “what if,” and opened our minds to the possibility that accepting these children would lead to one less “at risk” population?

Recently, the News Journal reported substantive changes that Secretary of Education Susan Bunting made to proposed Regulation 225. Changes included:

Parent notification if a child wants to use a preferred name.

A model policy that is merely a suggestion for school districts to follow.

Fewer protections for children who want to play on sports teams coinciding with their affirmed gender. (This last change goes against DIAA policies that were established more than two years ago.)

The revised proposal disregards the research and experience of superintendents, board members, parents and students who created the first iteration of the proposed regulation.

I was on the committee that wrote the initial document. When I started on this committee in August, I had high hopes. Delaware was finally going to recognize LGBTQ students as an at-risk and vulnerable population within our schools.

Editorial: General Assembly should decide Delaware's transgender student rules

Eight years ago, my husband and I attempted to transition our daughter into the public school she had been attending. We were met with disdain. My child was not welcome despite being a responsible member of that school community for four years.

Schools work with children who have diabetes, heart monitors, ADHD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder and numerous other health conditions. But, when it came to being transgender, our child’s school turned their back on us.

In 2016, the Williams Institute at UCLA reported “that 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender.” That is 6 in every 1000 students.

Opponents of this regulation use this statistic to suggest that the transgender population is so small of a number that we don’t need a regulation to protect them. But I disagree.

In 19 years of teaching, I had one diabetic student. Should she have been marginalized because she was the only one?

When the committee began our work in August, we started by establishing a purpose. The most important phrase in our purpose statement was “to foster environments as welcoming, inclusive places where all students can flourish.”

The intention was never to cut parents out of their child’s life. It was to think about marginalized children and create a place where they were more than just tolerated.

We knew that this document was just the beginning. Training would be needed. Schools would need help understanding the needs a vulnerable transgender child.

I went to the public meetings held by DOE. While the newspapers have cited parents’ rights as the main reason for opposition, I would suggest that fear was the biggest reason.

Opponents stated that violence would take place in bathrooms (despite the research that accepting transgender students in the bathroom has not increased violence in any state). People worried that students would pretend to be transgender in order to win sports trophies and scholarships.

Finally, people felt bad for my child because they felt as parents we messed her up by allowing her to transition. So people who feared that their parents’ rights were being taken away suggested that my husband and I did not have the right to raise a healthy, non-suicidal child.

It is always better if schools and families work together. In the original proposed regulation, there were two sections that should be noted. Section 8.0, stated school staff “Shall work with students and families in providing access to locker rooms an bathrooms that correspond to the students’ gender identity.” Section 7.2 mandated that students could seek a name change in eSchoolPLUS if there was a ‘petition for change of name granted by the court.’”

A legal name change cannot take place with a parent’s involvement. The spirit of this document did not usurp parents’ rights.

Recently, a friend posted on Facebook that she met a man who was adamantly against Regulation 225. After a conversation with that man, my friend was happy to report that the man had changed his mind. He had never really thought of transgender people as human beings but only considered them in the abstract.

Please consider thinking of all our children as human beings. They have feelings, hopes and struggles just like everybody else.

I am asking those people who would not normally send a comment to DOE to do just that. Please do not stand by and do nothing. We need the State of Delaware to recognize that fear should not rule educational decisions about children.

Write your comments to DOEregulations.comment@doe.k12.de.us. Let the State of Delaware know that all kids are human and they deserve to be in, as the regulation says “welcoming, inclusive places where all students can flourish.”



