For Arthur Hanson and Alex Glenn, being high school students in rural Iowa has its usual tumultuous teenage challenges. But for Hanson and Glenn, there is one challenge most of their peers aren’t facing. They are transgender.

Simply saying they cannot be discriminated against under Iowa law isn’t enough. There’s also the issue of acceptance, and for both Hanson, a freshman at Nevada High School, and Glenn, a senior at Ballard High School in Huxley, they have found a welcoming environment among their friends and teachers.

Schools and small rural communities are recognizing the importance of creating a better understanding of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer) students in their midst but offering educational meetings and support groups for those struggling with gender identification and undergoing the transition from their birth gender to the gender they identify with today.

Hanson said he began questioning his gender between seventh and eighth grade.

“I just kind of went through a very short denial phase in which I forced myself to be a girl and not think about being a boy at all,” said Hanson, who was born as a girl but identifies as male. “Then I found this boy on YouTube that did videos for and from transgender men, and I sent that to my mom with a sense of finality and confidence that I was a boy.”

It’s a similar story for Glenn, who identifies as male despite being born female.

“I always fought my mom on what I would wear and how to wear my hair,” Glenn said. “I had tried so hard to be ‘girly’ for my family’s sake.”

Glenn said he also learned about what it means to be transgender from YouTube.

“I … found someone talking about what being ‘transgender’ is. As this person was talking, I related in every aspect,” Glenn said.

The topic of transgender students in the Nevada Schools and the laws concerning their rights in school was the subject of a social media discussion in Nevada this past fall. The questions and lack of knowledge about issues concerning transgenders and the LGBTQ community spurred one Nevada parent to take action, and a community meeting was held. It was facilitated by the Iowa Pride Network, to educate parents and students who wanted to learn more about transgender students and the entire LGBTQ community.

Glenn has been bringing the same type of discussion to the forefront at Ballard High School.

On Feb. 1, Glenn was present for the first meeting of a group known as SAGA (Sexuality And Gender Acceptance) at the high school. Five others attended, and two more couldn’t make it that day, but plan to be part of the group.

Ballard High School Principal John Ronca has been supportive of the group, saying Glenn has been the key person who brought it into existence.

“Alex came to me … spoke to our entire teaching staff and found a sponsor (Amy Endres, high school art teacher),” Ronca said.

“I personally feel great about the response our teaching staff has given to Alex and students who also identify as transgender or LGBT,” Ronca said. “I also feel very good about the fact that students have ‘come out’ at Ballard High School and we have had very few issues as a result.”

Glenn’s personal story includes experiences with bullying during his years in school, because kids didn’t always know or understand him.

When he first “came out,” Glenn said it was to a small group of friends.

“It was at the end of my sophomore year here at Ballard. The support I received from my friends was overwhelmingly amazing,” he said.

Even with that support, Glenn lost people in his life. He came out to his family at the end of his junior year. His parents, he said, were “super-supportive” of him, but not all his relatives have been able to deal with the change.

When it came to teachers at school, he wasn’t sure how they would react, especially within a small community. He was surprised to realize that many teachers were OK with him being transgender.

“Teachers are a key factor in LGBT students getting accepted,” Glenn said. “If teachers show that it is OK and are accepting, then students will follow. Teachers need to know what is at stake with some of these kids.”

The community forum in Nevada was facilitated by the Iowa Pride Network/One Iowa, and Sandra Zapata, its program coordinator, was the main speaker for the evening, telling residents the main focus was on education.

“Oftentimes, students and allies bring us into their schools or communities to start a conversation about how to be more inclusive of LGBTQ individuals or how to make students feel safer,” Zapata said.

Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, said the biggest challenge for schools in creating safe and supportive learning environments is having the tools to do so.

“School counselors play a pivotal role in creating a welcoming school climate and, as school budgets have been cut year after year, there are fewer school counselors, which results in less of an ability to implement research-based programs to help Iowa’s kids.”

Monson said research shows the best thing Iowa schools can do is include curriculum and resources that reflect their diverse community.

“That means library books that show it’s OK to have a single mom or two dads,” he said. “It’s OK to be a boy who likes pink or a girl who enjoys building robots. It’s OK to have feelings and experiences that are different.”

At the public meeting in Nevada, it was shared that suicide rates are much higher for transgender and LGBTQ students in general than for non-LGBTQ students.

Medical doctor Alison B. Carleton, who sees a number of LGBTQ patients in her Nevada practice, said transgender kids need social support.

“The best thing we can do for our youth is to let them know we love and accept them for who they are, whoever that is,” Carleton said. “They need to see us modeling acceptance of people different from us, and they need to see people who are different from the ‘norm’ being successful in school, in relationships and in jobs.”

For Lorrie Hanson, Arthur’s mother, the acceptance her son has found, and the information that is out about being transgender, has been critical in helping her son and family adjust.

“I’d rather have a transgender child than a dead child,” Lorrie Hanson said.

“We’re lucky, I think, to have the Internet today so that we can access information.”

Hanson said it was difficult for her at first coping with her son being transgender.

“After all, this was my first-born, my little girl who I had all these hopes and dreams for,” Hanson said. “But he is still my first-born child, and I still have hopes and dreams for him, just a little different now.”

Arthur said he is happy that the Nevada Schools now has a group called Cub Colors, which he said is vital to the school.

“My friends and I hear people talking very horrible things about transgender and queer people behind our backs, and they need to be educated,” he said. “Even if they don’t come to meetings and even if they don’t think gay people and transgender people exist, they don’t need to be rude about it to our faces.”

At Ballard, Glenn said he is excited he has been able to push the issue of what it is to be transgender to the forefront at his school. Even though he graduates this year, he said he will leave knowing he has made a difference in helping make the environment at Ballard safer for all students.

But Glenn also wants to leave another message behind.

“I am the same person as I have always been,” Glenn said. “I don’t identify the same as I used to, but that doesn’t mean I am a different person.”