Concerned parents contacted the district to see how the school is handling the presence of a transgender student. Faith-based Web sites were quick to criticize the parents of the child. Questions abounded about the boy who returned to the classroom as a girl.
How could their parents do this? How can the school allow this? What am I going to tell my children?
And in the face of the outcry over the little-understood subject of gender-identity issues, the school district remains firm in its position: "We are a public school and we are here to educate all kids that come to us. If we didn't educate this student and we turn them away, that would be discrimination, which is illegal."
Those are the words of Whei Wong, director of communications for the Douglas County school district, who has handled most of the inquires to the district since the student returned to the classroom.
The 8-year-old student attended school in the district until the end of the 2006-2007 school year, when he transferred to another district and for a short time attended home school, Wong said.
His parents began working with the district in September 2007, paving the way to return him, now presenting his gender as a female, to the second-grade classroom. The dialogue with school officials revolved around how to make her return to the classroom a safe experience for both the student and her classmates, Wong said.
In the interest of student confidentiality, the district made no announcement about the student's return to school, but shortly after the end of the holiday break began hearing from parents with questions. The district provided parents with an information packet to help educate district families about transgender persons.
The second grade student is one of three transgender students the district is aware of in Douglas County, Wong said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says transgender individuals are those whose gender identity does not match the gender with which they were born. Gender identity comes to every person at an early age and has nothing to do with sexual identity, said Littleton therapist Laura Thor. Thor is listed as a resource for visitors to the Web site for the Gender Identity Center of Colorado.
Gender identity usually comes to individuals at an early age, Thor said. Every person, by about age four, knows fundamentally whether he or she is a boy or a girl, she said. Transgender issues happen when that self-knowledge doesn't match the physical reality.
Transgender persons have not gone through any surgical alterations and should not be confused with gay or lesbian individuals because gender identity is not about sexual identity, Thor said. Transgender children are not thinking about who they want to date but are likely to be thinking about whether they feel more female or more male, regardless of their body type, she said.
"It's not about whether you want to kiss a boy or a girl, it's about whether you feel more like a boy or a girl," Thor said.
Thor recommends parents of young children with questions keep in mind basic principles when it come to educating your children: make sure you are having age-appropriate conversations, provide answers in simple terms to reflect and respect your child's age and maturity level and keep in mind there is a time and a place for every conversation.
"Most children at that age aren't asking 'why did that happen to someone?' You know at third grade they're not asking a lot of those questions," she said. "We can say things like, 'The child and his or her family are working with the doctors to make sure he's OK to make sure he's happy,' and leave it at that. The older kids are asking different questions and because they're older they can handle different answers."
Questions from older kids came at the beginning of this school year to a neighboring school district, with vastly different reactions from parents and students alike.
The Elizabeth C-1 School District welcomed a transgender student in September 2007, with little fanfare and no measurable negative reaction from parents in the vastly conservative community. Elizabeth is in the rural community of Elbert County, where it is not uncommon to see pickup trucks equipped with gun racks parked in the school parking lots.
The transgender student started school in September 2007, following a transfer from East High School, where an assault against a transgender friend prompted the family to move from Denver, said Jim Trevino, Elizabeth C-1 school spokesman. The family worked closely with the school district in preparation for the student's arrival, Trevino said. The student compromised with the district on clothing choices, primarily in deference to the school's dress code, and the district in turn provided educational tools and class-by-class orientation for its students as they faced a unique opportunity for a lesson in diversity.
Trevino is pleasantly surprised at the response to the presence of a transgender student in the Elizabeth C-1 School District, which he describes as "more conservative and less diverse" than larger, neighboring districts.
While Trevino concedes there have been incidents requiring discipline against students who have made inappropriate comments or overtures, he also points out that parents are supportive of the school's position.
"It's still a transition in progress because kids aren't used to it, parents aren't used to it," Trevino said. "But I think it hasn't become a big deal because he has pledged to work with us on it. He just wants to make sure we don't take away his rights, which we're not going to do."
While the Douglas County School Districts copes with questions from parents of younger childnre, the children themselves raise few flags about the new girl in school, Wong said. The school principal reports that any distractions have been minimal and consistent with any new student joining a class, Wong said. .
"The focus is making sure our kids are OK and they receive the education they deserve," Wong said. "To make sure our students have a safe and positive ... environment in which to learn."
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