Volusia educators get
instruction on handling
gender identity issues
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Linda Trimble, Education Writer
What started as a Deltona mother's campaign to make sure her transgender child would be safe at school moved ahead on a new front this week as 65 Volusia teachers, counselors and school administrators learned about gender identity issues and how they impact their students.
"Our job is to make kids safe, all kids," said Amy Hall, counseling specialist for Volusia schools, in explaining the reason for the two-day workshop that wrapped up Wednesday at Mainland High School. "If they don't feel safe at school, they're not going to be productive academically."
The workshop, led by staff from the YES Institute in Miami, grew out of discussions that led to the Volusia School Board's March adoption of a policy banning bullying or harassment of students or employees based on gender identity or expression.
The Deltona mother, who spoke at the workshop Wednesday but asked to remain anonymous to protect her child's identity, had been pushing for the policy for a year with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
She reported her child, who's a biological girl being raised as a boy in the belief that's the child's true gender identity, had been teased by other children at a Deltona elementary school. Some adults at the school also called the child "her" in front of other youngsters and wouldn't allow use of the masculine first name the child preferred, she said.
The 9-year-old's parents had the name changed legally in January to a male version of the name they chose when the child was born. That's transformed the child from "a depressed daughter to a happy son," the mother said.
"For the longest time, it was me against the school system," the child's mother told the workshop participants. She no longer feels that way after this week's meetings with a roomful of educators "who want to be supportive."
"She's not only a parent; she's an advocate," Hall said of the Deltona mother after she talked about her family's experiences in raising a transgender child. "If it wasn't for her, we'd be light years behind where we are."
The YES Institute was founded in 1996 to combat high rates of suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. It now offers a series of training programs on gender, orientation, communication and leadership.
Educating people about those issues is "going to save the lives of children," said the institute's co-founder, Martha Fugate, who was one of the leaders of this week's workshop.
Hall said national studies have shown 31 percent of transgender youth attempt suicide at some point in their lives and 60 percent of them are victims of violent attacks.
She said Volusia schools are seeing more students identify themselves at an earlier age as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender "because they feel safe."
Every high school in the county has a number of such students, she said, and workshop participants reported it's not unusual to see same-gender couples holding hands on campus even at middle schools.
BULLYINGSunday, October 17, 2010 Parents need to step up
Last month one boy hanged himself and now another has jumped off a bridge. Their last thoughts were of hopelessness and humiliation, and now they are gone.
You better believe people will be punished. If not by the law, people will be ostracized and sentenced in the court of public opinion. People will accuse and people will defend. Witnesses will come forth and say, "What a good boy he was, I don't know how this could have happened. People will defend themselves and others; "I didn't make him do it. All I did was utilize technology. Everyone does that."
Parents will proclaim "I didn't raise him to hate others, he didn't realize what would happen. It is not his fault." The boys we lost, their mothers will cry. The children who taunted or teased, whose lives are now irrevocably scarred by the tragedy, their mothers will also cry.
Rachel Sottile, MS
Director of YES Institute
Yes, people will wring their hands and rally. People will get angry. After the accusations, the exchanges, the reactions, and even the punishment; what will remain? Hearts will become more set on both sides, more defended and less open. Nothing will change.
At YES Institute, we work every day with both the youth who are teased to humiliation, and the youth and adults who tormented them. It is hard work to keep focused on our purpose: "To prevent suicide and ensure the healthy development of all youth, through powerful communication and education on gender and orientation," and not stop with mere reactions, no matter how justified. Doing this hard work, however, has enormous rewards. Things do change.
Communication and education are not the easy answer people want; not the quick answer our pain seeks, but, it is the effective answer. YES Institute's work is about changing hearts and saving lives on both sides of the equation.
Parents, sisters, brothers, friends, teachers, clergy and even casual observers of these tragedies, everyone on both sides of the debate who are devastated by such a senseless waste of life, all can be changed and healed with communication and education.
And if that can happen, hearts will change and we won't have to live in a world where youth jump off a bridge because of who they love.
RACHEL SOTTILE, MS
Executive Director, YES Institute, Miami
www.yesinstitute.org
[Original text submitted to the Miami Herald, published October 17, 2010.]
Volusia educators get
"Our job is to make kids safe, all kids," said Amy Hall, counseling specialist for Volusia schools, in explaining the reason for the two-day workshop that wrapped up Wednesday at Mainland High School. "If they don't feel safe at school, they're not going to be productive academically."
She reported her child, who's a biological girl being raised as a boy in the belief that's the child's true gender identity, had been teased by other children at a Deltona elementary school. Some adults at the school also called the child "her" in front of other youngsters and wouldn't allow use of the masculine first name the child preferred, she said.
