Transgender students

The San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center has published the following guidelines for schools to accommodate transgender students:

• Use pronouns that correspond to the student's gender identity, rather than biological gender.

• Allow students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity, rather than biological gender.

• When possible, provide a unisex single-stall bathroom for use by any student if they so choose.

• Transgender students who want to use locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity should be provided a separate private changing area, such as a bathroom stall with a door, or a separate changing schedule. Transgender students also should be allowed to use locker rooms corresponding to their biological gender or to satisfy a physical education requirement with independent study outside of gym class.

• Students should not be forced to choose between male and female clothing.

• Students should be allowed to participate in sports according to their gender identity, and not biological gender. Issues of competitive fairness should be resolved on a case-by-case basis.

MUSKEGON COUNTY

-- Mona Shores High School staff were counting students' votes for homecoming king and queen, when they were thrown into a conundrum that has since drawn them into an uncomfortable spotlight.

They began to see ballots with the name Oak Reed written in the spot for homecoming king. The problem, as they saw it, was that Reed is a girl, at least biologically speaking.

District administrators were consulted, and legal advice reviewed about whether allowing Reed, who identifies as a boy, to be king was the fairest, most appropriate avenue to take.

"We were at the 12th hour," said Mona Shores Superintendent Terry Babbitt. "We really didn't have time to discuss policy."

And so the decision was made that Reed was not qualified to be homecoming king. Ballots for Reed were not counted -- and a firestorm was ignited.

Since then, Mona Shores High School Principal Jennifer Bustard reportedly has received more than 1,000 e-mails, most of them angry about the decision. Comments left at the Chronicle's website, www.mlive.com/muskegon, have reflected the clear divisiveness of the issue: There are those who cheer the district for not giving in to the desires of one student, and there are others who chastise it for violating Reed's civil rights.

Caught in the middle are school officials who were bound to offend someone no matter what they decided.

"I think they really got caught where they had to make a call and made it," said Muskegon attorney Gary Britton, who counsels many area school districts, though not Mona Shores. "It's damned if you do and damned if you don't. It goes back to what's good for the whole group rather than the individual, without slicing up the rights for the individual."

Left in the wake of the incident that attracted national news attention and worldwide reaction on Internet blogs, is a series of questions for not just Mona Shores, but other districts as well.

Which bathrooms and locker rooms should transgender students be required to use? Which sports teams should they compete on? What about housing arrangements during school-related overnight trips such as band camp? And should transgender students have their own dress code?

Britton said he doesn't have all the answers.

"It's a real toughie," Britton said.

It is, he said, an issue not to be taken lightly, given the emotional fragility of students who are markedly different than others and the "mischief" that less sensitive teens tend to engage in.

More than 86 percent of lesbian, gay and transgender students reported being verbally harassed and 22 percent reported being physically assaulted, according to a 2008 report by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

While harassment of those students is prohibited by schools' anti-bullying policies, other practical issues are not typically subject to any policies, Britton said.

In the case of bathrooms, Britton said he would tell his schools the student should be required to use bathrooms devoted to their biological gender, not the one with which they identify. He said he would recommend a student stay in a faculty cabin at band camp. As for athletics, Britton said he thinks that probably would have to be settled on a case-by-case basis.

These are the types of issues that Mona Shores apparently has already had to deal with. Reed's Facebook page includes photos from band camp, and Babbitt said the district had consulted its attorneys earlier this year on "gender-related issues."

Babbitt said the advice given to the district regarding bathrooms was the same as Britton's: A transgender student must use the bathroom set aside for his or her biological gender. Allowing a transgender student to use a faculty rest room is another possibility, he said.

"Anything we do has to be defensible under current case law and statute," he said.

But there is little such precedent in Michigan to guide decisions. It would, education officials said, be much easier for schools if there was.

In Maine, parents of a transgender sixth-grader sued a school district because it had the student use a gender-neutral staff bathroom. The Maine Human Rights Commission last week came down on the side of the parents, saying the male-to-female transgender student should be allowed to use the girls bathroom to avoid depression and anxiety.

The middle school had arranged for the child to use a private locker room and provided training to staff and students, according to the school district. But the school remained a hostile environment, the parents say in their lawsuit.

While area schools currently aren't prepared to accommodate transgender students, Britton said the Mona Shores incident will prompt him to begin conversations about policies with his client school districts.

Babbitt said Mona Shores is already reviewing its policies, and predicted that its experience with a transgender student is "a sign of the times and the future."

"It will be a topic of discussion, not just with superintendents, but with boards of education, faculty members as well as parents and community residents," Babbitt said. "These kinds of issues are broad community issues."

Jim Ballard, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, likens the transgender issue to the "contentious" debates 10 years ago about high school gay and lesbian clubs -- groups that are now fairly common.

"This is further defining the issue," Ballard said.

Three years ago, a Fresno, Calif., high school faced a similar situation to Mona Shores'. A male-to-female transgender student ran for, and became, prom queen. The high school principal was quoted at the time as saying "everyone loves Johnny" and remarking on how there was surprisingly little controversy.

There are those in Muskegon who believe Mona Shores officials should have just left it up to students to decide who the homecoming king would be.

But Ballard said that's difficult for school officials, who must respect the wishes of parents -- wishes that often run counter to those of students. As Britton said, "School districts are kind of the last bastion of grassroots mom and apple pie. People do hang onto traditions."

What is clear from Mona Shores' experience is that accommodating transgender students is an emotional hot button. Ballard said Bustard remains "distraught" by the anger directed at the school and the "hate mail" she has received.

"Sometimes you get put into a corner where nothing you can do will appease your constituency," he said. "Everyone's rights are equal in this case, and yet they're in conflict with each other.

"Where do you go as a building administrator, district administrator or school board?"

E-mail Lynn Moore: lmoore@muskegonchronicle.com