Tag: Department of Education

I’ve got a couple of stories I am cobbling together to support the title thesis…which should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody.  I mean, it’s nearly a tautology.

Big surprise.  Maryland recently became the 17th state to offer anti-discrimination protections for gender non-conforming people…so immediately the people who voted against it and lost started howling…and lying and fear-mongering…hoping to cajole the Maryland public into dispensing with the new law.

Incredibly, the conservatives’ main line of attack is that the law will turn women’s restrooms into fertile ground for peeping toms disguised in dresses and wigs, even for similarly attired rapists.  This is middle school trash talk disguised as policy analysis.  There is no evidence that this is a statistically detectable problem in other states that have banned discrimination against transgender people, nor in Maryland localities, such as Montgomery County, that have had similar statutes on the books for years.

…

More broadly, opponents of the legislation tend to miss its central point, which is to ban the blatant discrimination that transgender people report is pervasive.  In a 2011 survey conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, 71 percent of transgender people in Maryland said they had experienced harassment or mistreatment at work and 18 percent said they had lost a job or been denied a promotion as a result of their gender identification.  Seventeen percent reported having been denied housing.  Shocking numbers of students in public schools report harassment (81 percent) and assaults (38 percent).

—Washington Post Editorial Board

The Post rightly points out that although recall leader Del. Neil C. Parrott (R-Asshole) has concentrated on raising fears about behavior in bathrooms, he opposed transgender protections at every turn when they didn’t include public accommodations.

On my last day of actual teaching (only Finals Week to go before my retirement), I am proud to announce a major breakthrough in the rights of transgender and other gender-variant people on the federal level.

On Tuesday the Department of Educations Office of Civil Rights issued a letter barring all schools which receive Title IX funds from the Federal government from discriminating against gender-nonconforming students, entitled Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence.

Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts such complaints for investigation.  Similarly, the actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of the parties does not change a school’s obligations.  Indeed, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth report high rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence.  A school should investigate and resolve allegations of sexual violence regarding LGBT students using the same procedures and standards that it uses in all complaints involving sexual violence.  The fact that incidents of sexual violence may be accompanied by anti-gay comments or be partly based on a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation does not relieve a school of its obligation under Title IX to investigate and remedy those instances of sexual violence.

If a school’s policies related to sexual violence include examples of particular types of conduct that violate the school’s prohibition on sexual violence, the school should consider including examples of same-sex conduct.  In addition, a school should ensure that staff are capable of providing culturally competent counseling to all complainants.