This school’s approach to trans acceptance is amazing
This school’s approach to trans equality puts North Carolina to shame.
With 19% of their student body identifying as transgender, Fishers High School in Indiana are doing all that they can to encourage equality and acceptance.
The school has a thriving LGBT club (Equality Alliance Club) and has two new single stall bathrooms specifically for transgender students.
The Equality Alliance Club has brought transgender issues into the spotlight and worked hard to promote gender equality in the school.
By spreading awareness surrounding trans issues within the school, the group has educated many students who had previously little understanding of what trans people experience.
When the school surveyed 2,000 of its 3,300 students, they found that 3% of pupils identified as both male and female, whilst 10% were undecided on their sexuality.
People who identify outside of the binary will often use ‘they’ or ‘ze’ pronouns to denote that their gender does not conform to male or female.
This often confuses cisgender (those who do not question their assigned gender) people, as ‘they’ is a commonly used plural pronoun and ‘ze’ is new vocabulary.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with transgender people, but now that it has become present in this generation and is getting noticed more around the school, I have been more careful with how I am using my pronouns and who I am saying ‘them’ to,'” Junior Liza Fortozo told Women’s eNews.
“Transgendered people in my experience want to be called by their chosen pronoun just to feel accepted and more ‘normal,’” club member Gloria Swardenski added.
However, not all students in the school are as accepting.
“I’ve had people look at me and tell me they are never going to use my preferred name/pronouns because I will ‘never be a man,’” trans student Tony Leppert.
This is the kind of discrimination that the Equality Alliance Club are working to eradicate from the school environment, in order to allow LGBT students to be free to explore their identities without fear of rejection.
With North Carolina’s HB2 bathroom bill coming under increased scrutiny by the Obama administration, Fishers is winning praise for its approach to ‘bathroom issue’.
