Cakep..
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Transgender first-grader wins the right to use girls' restroom
By Ed Payne, CNN
June 24, 2013 -- Updated 1915 GMT (0315 HKT)
Transgender child's family fights school
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Coy Mathis wins complaint under Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act
* She was denied the use of the girls' restroom at her elementary school
* Coy was born a boy but identifies as a girl
* Ruling says district was "objectively and subjectively hostile"
(CNN) -- A transgender first-grader who was born a
boy but identifies as a girl has won the right to use the girls'
restroom at her Colorado school.
The Colorado Rights Division ruled in favor of Coy Mathis in her fight against
the Fountain-Fort Carson School District.
Coy's parents had taken her case to the commission after the district said she
could no longer use the girls' bathroom at Eagleside Elementary. In issuing its
decision, the state's rights
division said keeping the ban in place "creates an environment that is
objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating or offensive."
The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund praised the ruling that was
filled under Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act. Michael Silverman, the group's
executive director, called the ruling "a high-water mark for transgender
rights."
This is the first of it's kind ruling in the country regarding the rights of
transgender
students. No court, no tribunal has ever said what the Colorado Division of
Civil Rights has said today which is that trangendered students must be treated
equally. They specifically referenced the outmoded concept
of separate but equal and told us that separate but equal is very rarely equal
and it is certainly not equal in Coy's case.
Coy's mother, Kathryn
Mathis, said she's pleased that Coy can return to school and put this
behind her. The first-grader has been home schooled during the
proceedings
"We're very thrilled that Coy is able to return to school and have the same
rights that all the
other girls had, that she should have had and was afforded by law to
begin with. We're extremely happy that she's going to be treated equally and we
thank the civil rights division for coming to this conclusion,"
Kathryn Mathis said. "We're very grateful to the voters of Colorado for
putting its laws into place to begin with."
A girl's life
For most of the past year, Coy has dressed as a girl.
Coy's passport and state-issued identification recognize her as female.
Transgender kids: Painful quest to be who they are
Mathis said she got a
call "out of the blue" from the school in December saying that Coy could use
the boys' bathroom, gender-neutral faculty bathrooms or the nurse's bathroom,
but not the girls' facilities.
The district "took into
account not only Coy, but other students in the building, their parents
and the future impact a boy with male genitals using a girls' bathroom
would have as Coy grew older," a letter the family's attorney received
in December said.
"However, I'm certain
you can appreciate that, as Coy grows older and his male genitals
develop along with the rest of his body, at least some parents and
students are likely to become uncomfortable with his continued use of
the girls' restroom."
CNN was unable to reach
the school district early Monday for comment on the ruling. But in
February, the district's attorney, W. Kelly Dude, said: "The district
firmly believes it has acted reasonably and fairly with respect to this
issue."
Opinion: Gender identity not just body parts
A little-studied group
Transgender children
experience a disconnect between their sex, which is based on their
anatomy, and their gender, which includes behaviors, roles and
activities, experts say.
For the general public,
transgender identity may be a new concept, though many might recall Chaz Bono,
the child of entertainers Sonny and Cher. Born female, Bono
underwent a transition in his 40s to become a man. He wrote in his book
"Transition" that, even as a child, he had been "aware of a part of me that did
not fit."
He appeared last year as a man on "Dancing with the Stars," in part, he said,
to destigmatize being transgender.
Being transgender no longer a mental 'disorder' in diagnostic manual
Comprehensive data and
studies about transgender children are rare. International studies have
estimated that anywhere from 1 in 30,000 to 1 in 1,000 people are
transgender.
Some children as young
as age 3 show early signs of gender dysphoria or gender identity
disorder, mental health experts who work with transgender children say.
These children are not
intersex -- they do not have a physical disorder or malformation of
their sexual organs. The gender issue exists in the brain, though
experts do not agree on whether it's psychologically or physiologically
based.
Many transgender people report feeling discomfort with their gender as early as
they can remember.
Transgender job seekers face uphill battle
Gender identity is often confused with sexual orientation. The difference is
that "gender
identity is who you are, and sexual orientation is who you want to have
sex with," said Dr. Johanna Olson, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the
University of Southern California, who treats transgender children.
Children around age 3
are probably not interested in sexual orientation, she said. But experts say
some children who look like they will be transgender in early
childhood turn out to be gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Differences in schools
School policies toward transgender students vary across the United States.
In New York, for example, the law says students can't be discriminated against
on the basis of their gender identity.
But in Maine, a court
ruled in November that a school district did not violate a transgender
student's rights when she was told she couldn't use the girls' bathroom.
Gender nonconformity is not a disorder, group says
Dude, the Colorado
school district's attorney, has said there is nothing in that state
requiring public schools to permit transgender students to use restrooms
intended for the gender with which they identify.
At the time, he argued
that the Fountain-Fort Carson School District adheres to the Colorado
Anti-Discrimination Act in all respects: "Coy attends class as all other
students, is permitted to wear girls' clothes and is referred to as the parents
have requested."
On Monday, Silverman underscored what he described as the unfairness of Coy's
situation.
"By denying Coy the
right to use the little girls restroom like all the other little girls
at school it had created an environment that was hostile, discriminatory and
unsafe. Coy was treated in what was referred to as an exceptional
way, which limited her educational opportunities. In the end, we've been saying
from the start, that Coy wants the same dignity, respect and
opportunity, and deserves that, as every other student in Colorado. The
state of Colorado has now said that's exactly what she deserves,"
Silverman said.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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