Students will be allowed to use the bathrooms, locker rooms that correspond with their preferred gender identity

Sarasota County Schools plans to release a set of gender guidelines this week that will afford transgender students more security and assurance that they will be identified by and use the bathrooms that correspond with their preferred gender identity.

The guidelines indicate that Sarasota County students will be addressed by the name and gender that they prefer, which do not have to adhere to what is on their birth certificate. All students who want to use the bathroom and locker room that match their “consistently asserted gender identity” will be accommodated in a way that meets their needs and privacy concerns. All schools must have a universal or single stall bathroom, but no student will be forced to use that bathroom, according to the guidelines.

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Superintendent Todd Bowden released the guidelines to School Board members in an email last Friday morning. He planned to disseminate them to principals and administrators by the end of this week, but a flurry of media attention led him to decide to release the guidelines on Wednesday morning, according to district spokeswoman Tracey Beeker. The document has sparked disagreement within the School Board over his handling of the issue.

School Board Member Jane Goodwin said she had fought for these guidelines for a long time and was happy to see them. She noted that they were necessary as a template for principals to handle a student each time they come forward.

“I don’t think every principal is figuring it out,” Goodwin said. “I think there are some that are doing great work, and we have some that may not feel as comfortable. And we are getting new principals that come in and this makes them understand what their role is and how to accommodate.”

But School Board Chairwoman Bridget Ziegler took issue with Bowden’s decision not to publicize the guidelines or go before the board with them.

“This needs to be public,” Ziegler said. “... It was never intended to be publicly released ever, whether it be a board discussion or a press release. That, to me, is negligent, and that is a disservice to our public on something this important. We know it is a highly controversial, high-interest topic.”

Ziegler also took issue with a phrase in the guidelines that implies parents do not have to be involved in the discussion of a child’s gender identity. One part of the document reads: “It is up to the student, and the student alone, to share her/his/their identity.”

“That is completely stripping the rights of families, parents and/or guardians to be a part of this discussion,” Ziegler said. “The district has no place in cutting out parents in that discussion.”

But Goodwin disagreed, noting that students often don’t tell their parents about their preferred gender identity because they are afraid of the consequences.

“Some kids tell me the safest place they feel is at school, and a lot of their parents are not aware of what they are doing,” Goodwin said. “So, in effect, they may not be talking to their parents about this, so that would be outing them, wouldn’t it? That’s what I’m fearful of.”

The document was drafted by the district’s LGBTQIA Task Force, Bowden said in his email to board members. That committee met five times between May and August 2017, Beeker said, and spent more than a year drafting this policy.

Legal precedents in Florida were also set this summer. In late July, a St. Johns County transgender male student won a lawsuit in the federal court saying that he could use the male restroom in his school.

Beeker said the two factors led to a hastened timetable for drafting and approving the guidelines.

“I think (Bowden) felt a little bit that there was a need to get these out the door and off his desk, so to speak, just because the committee has been working on them for a whole year. Coupled with the legal outcomes, we were sort of waiting for that to happen,” Beeker said. “I think there was a little bit of a sense of urgency on his part to make sure that these guidelines were made available as quickly as possible.”

Bowden did not want to speak to the media before he sent the guidelines to principals and staff on Wednesday, Beeker said, but he said in an earlier interview with the Herald-Tribune that he wanted to commit clear procedure to paper for transgender students this year.

Transgender students and allies have been fighting for clearer policies in Sarasota County since at least 2016, when Nate Quinn, a trans student, fought for the right to use the men’s restroom at Pine View.

But while those students asked for a policy that would firmly allow students to use the bathroom and locker room that corresponded with their gender identities, the district’s new gender guidelines still retain some of the status quo. When asked about the vague language, Beeker attributed them to students who may want different things and schools that may be able to offer different things.

“It’s on a case-by-case basis based on the individual student and their request and the school’s ability to accommodate that request,” Beeker said. “It’s the specific needs that student has and making sure that the approach they’re going to take is the right one for the student.”