By: Shaniya Robinson-Owens
At a school in New Jersey they encourage students to spread kindness instead of bully.
Everyone should have a safe and special place to get an education. Unfortunately, in some Philadelphia schools, LGBTQ students, and more specifically transgender and non-conforming students, aren’t getting the school experience they deserve.
LGBTQ students are more likely to be discriminated against and even get in trouble for minor offenses that are just not fair especially when it comes to policies like uniform. Our school doesn’t really have this problem, but at other schools, boys have to wear pants and girls have to wear skirts. They don't take into consideration things like gender expression (Do all girls like wearing skirts? Do all boys only like wearing pants?), transgender students or students who don't identify as either girls or boys. They go by what is on your ID and if they see an F (Female) on your ID, you are required to wear a skirt or else you will be given whatever the punishment is at your particular school. In private schools they go by your bio sex. So if you were born a female or male that's what they are going by, until we fix it.
This is a poster showing that we are all the same and should be treated equal.
Statistics from GLSEN's 2015 National School Climate Survey for Pennsylvania
The graphs above show some of the ways that LGBTQ students face harassment and discrimination in schools. The following are stories from a few students that have had to deal with gender discrimination. This story is from a fellow student at Carver, but the problem didn’t happen at Carver. Kieran McIntire (9th grade): “Other than wanting to wear pants at my old school for the uniform, and having to wear a skirt, but I haven't actually gotten in trouble, no.” She clearly received the lucky end of uniform because she didn’t fight back she just did what she was told and moved on. But other student aren’t so lucky and felt like they are misunderstood. This can lead to overthinking, depression, and suicide, none of which want to happen. When I heard this story from Kieran, I thought that maybe other students at Carver has faced similar challenges at school. And so I came up with a survey of about 10 simple questions. I let the students stay anonymous because some students might not feel comfortable with telling their stories and having people looking at them sideways or even babying them especially if the situation is done and over with. But I did give them the option to leave their email if they felt comfortable explaining their story or even answering a few more questions.
If you would like to answer the survey and have your voice and story be heard click below:⬇️⬇️
I also conducted a survey of the teachers at Carver with just two basic questions: Do you know the School District Policy 252? Also, do you know about the School District policy for Transgender and Non-Conforming students?
Here are the results of the survey - Teacher Survey from CarverHSES. Most teachers didn't know the policy number but the knew what the policy was.
I also talked to a fellow student about this topic and how Carver has a gender neutral bathroom but it has not been open for years. This issue is due to pipe work, the bathroom was opened last school year for a week but was quickly closed. Not having a gender-neutral bathroom creates an unsafe environment for transgender or gender-nonconforming students who do not feel comfortable using gendered bathrooms. This needs to be fixed for our school to not only be following Policy 252, but also to create the safe and special learning environment that everyone deserves.
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