This is the first of a short series of articles I will be putting out addressing the ways transgender people are discriminated against at Powhatan High School, what the staff does, and how we can improve. Especially in such a dire time where it seems everything is going off the rails and hatred for many discriminated groups seems to be rising. No names will be used in this article to ensure the safety and anonymity of the transgender students I have spoken with.
This article is going to be over the firsthand experiences of these students with small blurbs of my own opinions afterwards. While this will be a lot of negative, don’t worry there are always positives in even the most hateful of places.
Student #1
From this student, I will use a few quotes from our conversation and they will be referred to as Ms. S to ensure her anonymity.
“As a publicly transgender woman in this school, I have experienced heightened transphobia and homophobia from other students and classmates, including being called gay in a derogatory manner, being called a “f*ggot,” being called a “tr*nny,” and being the recipient of jokes that are generally at the expense of my identity.” Ms. S
Now this is standard for what you would expect our dear friend Ms. S to go through in a school with predominant political ideologies that don’t approve of transgender people. However, Ms. S also notes that she received bullying about other aspects of her person that suspiciously only started AFTER the bullies learned of her queerness and transgender identity.
It doesn’t help that very little support is being given from family or even our staff here at the school.
“My parents have not authorized the school to use my chosen name and refuse to do so. Most notably, the school board has limited how supportive administration can be following the anti-transgender school policies.” – Ms. S
Parents who may be reading this, while I will cover the topic further in the final article, please be aware that simply allowing your child to go by their preferred name is a massive boost to their self esteem and confidence. Even lessening effects of gender dysphoria to some degree.
Those of you paying attention might note the mention of the school board anti-transgender policies, of which I am sure some of you are unaware of. These policies are as follows: Students may not go by a name not associated with their gender at birth without parental permission. (This means even at school students can’t get away from unsupportive parents and can’t use the right name for them.)
Students may not go by pronouns outside of he/him or she/her and they MUST follow the gender assigned at birth, rather than preference. These two policies have been passed and are currently in effect. I found the policy pertaining to this exact thing here. (Section J, Code JBB/GBAB, III Model Policies, Section D, Numbers 1-3)
Despite this Ms. S notes:
“That’s not to say everything is bad in this school for me, though: I do have a generally supportive group of friends that I hang around, and I have teachers who are aware of my situation, and go out of their way to accommodate it, such as only calling me by my last name. Some have even called me by my chosen name anyway, both in public and in private, despite the potential repercussions that they could face.
Even with those anti-transgender policies from the board, I have found the administration to be very supportive and defensive of my safety. They were very cooperative when I brought up the experiences I went through, and have helped me both resolve and settle situations between me and other students. I am extremely thankful for what I can get, especially in a conservative rural community.”
I am unaware of the names of the teachers who go out of their way to name Ms. S right, and I wouldn’t share if I did. If these teachers see this I salute you and am so hopeful that you are out there. Administration, thank you as well for doing what you can within the rules. I like to note that most trans students I hear of seem to genuinely approve of the staff here.
Student #2
This student did not give me as extensive of information on what they have experienced, but what they did say is certainly enough to note that harassment and even physical violence towards trans people is far from uncommon around here. This student I will refer to as Mr. S note that he and Ms. S are not affiliated with each other. The S in these pseudonyms just stands for student.
Mr. S started answering my question with the following:
“I think the first incidents came in the form of random comments in the hallways, mostly by people that I had never interacted with, I would hear conversations that roughly went like this: Person 1: Is that your guy/girl? (Referring to me) Person 2: Ew no! I’m not even sure what gender that thing is. It’s not exactly the most hurtful comment out there but still dehumanizing. They are fairly frequent, happening once or twice a month, by different people each time.”
This paints another unhappy portrait noting how people seem to dehumanize him all the time like this. Yet somehow this isn’t the worst offense. However, before we continue, if you haven’t already, put yourselves in these people’s shoes. You are someone with a small friend group, you receive insults in the halls, and overall are unpopular, so all these dehumanizing and degrading comments just wear you down bit by bit. It makes events like these even more hurtful.
Now, the next event Mr. S wanted to comment on is as follows:
“Probably the most degrading event happened one PE class, while I had previously heard several comments in passing on my gender during PE before, they were nothing too awful. However one day in PE while a large group of people were sitting on the bleachers (I can’t remember why,) I was repeatedly and loudly asked about my genitals, gross, and in a pretty vulgar manner. Luckily one of my friends was there to defend me and got them to stop, and afterwards a few people apologized for not intervening themselves.”
It doesn’t need to be stated how rude and upsetting that is for someone to go through. Whoever that friend was, who helped out and got those people to stop, there should be more good people like you in the world. Remember that if you see something going on like this, step in, try to make it stop. And maybe, if you’re quick enough you might be able to make the person being made fun of have at least a slightly better day.
Now, for another deeply upsetting incident report from Mr. S:
“There was another incident during PE where several transphobic comments were directed towards me later in the year. We were playing 4-way volleyball, and unsurprisingly people kept trying to keep the ball from getting to our side. Eventually it came to our side and I sidestepped slightly to hit the ball, however, as I did this someone from another team on the other side of the net ran over to our side and slammed into me.
I landed on my hip, falling to the floor and was visibly in pain. The boy who ran over and a few of his friends began mocking me with dehumanizing and obviously transphobic remarks, I remember hearing “Oh no! You that thing! And “You hurt it’s feelings!” distinctly. There were a few more comments but I don’t recall the specifics to share.”
That’s all Mr. S had to share, none of this was positive, I went back a few days later to request any positives he had to note, he laughed and shook his head. Outside of friends there wasn’t much at all.
This doesn’t paint a particularly good picture, trans people are not treated well here, and Mr. S noted that the staff generally were not of help! Truthfully, it is a shame. This article will end here. In future articles on this topic, I will be discussing how trans students are treated across the country and by staff. The final article will be addressed to the school here.
