Sometimes They Do The Right Thing…

In the past I have written many times about school systems that refuse to acknowledge trans-students. The most recent blog was Sunday when I wrote about a school in Maine that is being sued for discrimination; however, right next door is a school system that is doing the right thing…

Nashua School District applauded for accommodating transgender third-grader
The Telegraph
By MARYALICE GILL
September 23, 2012

After facing complaints that a transgender student was being discriminated against, the Nashua School District has agreed to let the student enroll at a new elementary school and be addressed as a female by school staff.

Janson Wu, a staff attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, praised the Nashua School District for its efforts to accommodate the needs of the transgender third-grader.
[…]
“The issues that public schools must often address mirror the broader issues in our society,” Superintendent Mark Conrad said in an email to The Telegraph, “and to the extent these issues reflect differing or even divisive opinions in the general community, we must find ways to address those issues to balance competing viewpoints while assuring we are protecting the rights of all children and ensuring their success.”

They did the right thing and avoided a long drawn out legal fight. In many other schools around the country it took a court order or intervention by federal authorities to get a school district to do the right thing. What is even more amazing was that there is not an explicit law in New Hampshire that covers gender identity or expression. The article went on to say…

New Hampshire is the only state in New England that doesn’t have explicit laws that protect transgender individuals, Wu said.

“That is certainly something we would like to see fixed,” he said.

State and federal laws protect a student’s access to a safe and appropriate education, Wu said, which protects students – including transgender and gender-variant youths – across the board.

It would be nice if New Hampshire passed an anti-discrimination law  that included gender identity and expression. The law time a bill was introduced in NH, the sponsors of the bill didn’t even vote for their own bill. The Republicans jumped all over the bill calling it the “Bathroom Bill” which the press picked up and called it that also in all of their article about the bill.

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This afternoon I will be doing an "outreach" at UConn School of Medicine for 2^nd year medical students.