School Administrators in a Safe Community Support Queer/Trans Youth

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Support your teachers and staff who are out of the closet.

Support your students who are out, too.

Many of the suggestions in other parts of the educators' section are relevant for school administrators. So check those out in addition to what's here.

If so, how would they like your support?
- Be sure to ask, whether that's by talking to students whom you know, attending part of a GSA meeting (with advance permission, of course), or any other way you can contact them.
- Listen closely to what they say.
- Compensate them for their time and expertise by offering a meal, snacks, gift cards, cash, or something similar.
- Once you have their guidance, follow up on their suggestions.
Can you support them openly? Or will you need to provide them behind-the-scenes support? Your school and community climate will help determine that.

Designate gender-neutral, single-occupancy restrooms that can be used by any student, not just those who are TGNC. Ideally, this should not be a bathroom in the nurse's office since that's both often out-of-the-way and sends a message to everyone that TGNC students need to be segregated for their bathroom needs — and, potentially, that being TGNC is an illness. (Perhaps cisgender students who don't want to share a bathroom with trans students can use an out-of-the-way bathroom all their own?)
- See, however, this article for challenges that can come from opening these restrooms to everyone.
Make it clear to everyone, students and adults alike, that everyone has the right to use the bathroom that most closely approximates their gender identity.
Bathroom Bans: How Trans Students Can Organize for Bathroom Access at Their Schools
I'm a Trans Teen—Stop Talking About My Genitalia Under the Guise of 'Privacy'
Separation and Stigma: Transgender Youth & School Facilities

Provide professional development for faculty and staff about LGBTQA+/SGL identities and experiences among children and youth.

Other critical actions to take

7 LGBTQ+ Resources for Educators
Ally Training
Continuing Education Courses for Teachers
Does a Decade of School Administrator Support for Educator Training on Students' Sexual and Gender Identity Make a Difference for Students' Victimization and Perceptions of School Climate? (This is an academic article but is too important to leave out.)
Gender Inclusive Schools: Professional Development/Training
GLSEN: Educator Resources
GLSEN: Professional Development
Understanding Gender
Welcoming Schools: Training

You can get an introduction to what intersectionality is in R2T2's glossary.

Race and ethnicity
Class
Age/generation
Education level
Geography (including local community, state, and country, as well as the degree to which where you live is rural or urban)
Neurodivergence
Disability
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Sensory
Mental health status
Nationality
Immigration status
Language(s) spoken
Political affiliation
Yes, even
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity
- Gender expression

This is especially for any reluctant or blatantly queer- or trans-antagonistic faculty or staff.

While i want far more than tolerance in schools (and everywhere else), that may be as much as we can get from conservative or deeply religious teachers, school staff, and students. Those individuals don't have to like queer and trans folx. But they do have to acknowledge our existence and accept the fact that, at the very least, we deserve to spend our days without social, emotional, physical, or sexual harassment and violence.

Make it clear that faculty and staff are welcome to their personal opinions about queer and trans folx. But any negative opinions must never interfere with their interactions with queer or trans members of your school community.

I have focused this point on faculty and staff, not other students, since faculty and staff have institutional power over all students in school. While students can have power over other students, they do not do so through the same institutional structures as adults.

There is nothing wrong with queer and trans students. So there is nothing in them that needs to be "converted" or "repaired."

If your school offers any queer- or trans-positive content and you hear from parents or other community members that you have to give "equal time" to people with other opinions….

It probably wouldn't go over very well if you commented that you wouldn't allow the KKK in to give a presentation on why racism is perfectly okay. But it would be understandable if you were tempted to. All opinions are not, in fact, inherently equal.
These adults may or may not be persuaded by an explanation that you're working on building a safe school environment for your queer and trans students.
- Despite having control of every major institution in this country (government at all levels, the media, education, healthcare…), many white Christian evangelicals, Christian fundamentalists, and Christian nationalists feel very much under attack. Anything that contradicts or challenges their beliefs and/or their control of most of what goes on in the US is seen as a threat and as evidence of how oppressed they are.
- So in this worldview, something that makes school less miserable for queer or trans students is a direct attack on straight, cis students.
If you are not legally obligated to give "equal time," remind parents of this fact.