Federal Reversal On Transgender Students Highlights Divisions

[...] Shappley worries what could happen to her daughter, now a 6-year-old named Kai, after the Trump administration Wednesday reversed a directive issued under President Obama that told schools and districts that transgender students should be able to use the restroom of their gender identity, regardless of what gender they were born. Under the Obama-era directive, schools and districts that failed to comply with the guidelines could have been subject to an Office of Civil Rights investigation. The majority of Houston-area school districts said they did not change their policies or practices after the Obama administration in May 2016 issued its directive on transgender students. In those districts, school administrators who receive such requests often take into account the student's history, privacy concerns, the location of facilities and other factors when determining which restroom a transgender student should be able to use. At a press coference Thursday morning at the Montrose Counseling Center, Anna Eastman, a HISD Board of Education trustee, said its anti-discrimination policy updated to include gender identity in 2011 to ensure students, their families and employees in the district have a safe space in which to work and in which to learn. On Thursday evening at the counseling center, more than 100 people gathered in the parking lot to express their displeasure with the new administration's directive and to show support for transgender students. After the Obama administrations directive on transgender students was released in 2016, Pearland ISD Superintendent John Kelly said his district requires students to use the restroom of the gender indicated on their birth certificate or use a private bathroom, such as one in the nurse's office. "When the Supreme Court redefined marriage and invented new constitutional rights, the door was opened for redefining all social norms, now including Executive Branch dictates about bathroom and locker room rules in local schools," Kelly said at the time.