Schools take action to address LGBTQ issues

By Sienna Ericsson,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

When elementary school children from Davis went to the historic state park in Sacramento on a recent field trip, they were expected to wear costumes that aligned with their perceived gender instead of choosing the clothes for themselves. Girls were to wear dresses and bonnets and boys were to wear work shirts and boots.  

However, parent concerns led to a change in policy. Now the costume choices are sent to families in advance and each student may decide what they want to wear regardless of the gender with which they identify.  

At the junior high and high school level in Davis, teachers no longer assign parts in plays based on the perceived gender of the character, but instead allow students to choose parts without regard to identity.

Davis High also provides a safe and welcoming community for those interested in LGBTQ issues through the Gender Sexuality Alliance club.

“The first thing we did in the meeting was introduce ourselves and list the pronouns to be used in describing oneself. I found this to be enlightening,” school board member Tom Adams said. “A simple word change, a pronoun in this case, can be the first sensitive action in respecting who a person is.”

Although a small change, this action is beneficial in reversing the cisgendered (people who identify with the sex they were born with) normativity that pervades society.

“One way to interrupt this is to make it common practice to introduce ourselves with our pronouns,” said Elizabeth Cote, director of the UC Davis LGBTQIA+ Resource Center.

While it may seem strange at first, Cote notes that the word they can sometimes be a healthy alternative as opposed to just using he/she.

“Use of the singular they is an excellent move toward disrupting cisnormativity, greater inclusion, and generally greater accuracy of language,” Cote said.

The current advisor of DHS’s GSA club, Jacob Moore, started attending meetings after running into the previous adviser, Bill Wheeler, on his first day on campus. He found that the way the officers were so openly engaged with the community was inspiring, and he quickly knew he wanted to get involved if he could.

“When I was still in high school, the GSA was composed of a few students that occasionally met with a teacher and, sadly, were usually targeted and ridiculed for doing so,” Moore said. “The contrast of what I saw at my high school and what I was seeing now was impressive and exciting.”

The school district’s Director of Student Services Laura Juanitas led a group of staff and parents to revise one of the school’s regulations on nondiscrimination and harassment in 2013-14 in an effort to help transgender students feel welcome and protected. This was one of the first times a school district had made an action like this in the state.

“As a district, we continue to work to remove gender stereotypes from curriculum and classroom practices,” Tom Adams said. “[It] is an ongoing process and, unfortunately, there continues to be many instances where [the acknowledgement of LGBT people] is not included. Students can help in this effort by talking to their teachers about their concerns.”