Essay Sample on The Experience of Transgender Students Over Time

Students of K-8 classrooms often struggle to get good grades & find their place among peers even under ideal conditions. Having an additional wrench thrown into the gears can turn a challenging situation into one that feels impossible. If this is caused by being a member of a marginalized group, even when being part of that group is viewed as “a choice” rather than an inescapable reality, it can even become a matter of life and death. Transgender students have had to struggle immensely just to survive in education, let alone thrive, or even hope to acheive a similar outcome to their peers. Though the situation has improved measurably over the last few decades, there is still a long journey ahead in terms of achieving a safe environment for all genders, where queerness is normalized and transgender students are truly accepted.

Additionally, this paper is written with the understanding that data on transgender students specifially can be difficult to find. Many studies treat LGBTQ students as a single homogenous group, despite the fact that studies which take the time to measure transgender students separetely find measurable difference between their experiences & the experience of cisgender LGB students (Robinson, Espelage). Many LGBTQ-centric studies do not even include transgender students in their sample to begin with, instead choosing to generalize results drawn from LGB students to the queer community as a whole. If there’s nothing more specific available, at times more general LGBTQ statistics will be drawn from, but this will be clearly marked for the sake of transparency.

Historically, being transgender (or any kind of visibly gender nonconforming) has been brutal. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students: Perceived Social Support in the High School Environment”, published in 2002 & citing data from the late 80’s-mid 90’s, explains that LGBT high school students at the time were higher risk than their peers in terms of verbal & physical harassment, substance abuse, STDs, prostitution, homelessness, and suicide ideation & attempts. The study also suggests that many of these struggles are fueled by a loss of social support & the end of existing relationships (platonic and romantic) because people found out they were queer. LGBT students who retained their support system were at considerably less risk of suffering like their outcast counterparts. Even then, this support system was usually made of other LGBT students, implying that these students could rarely find a lasting friendship with their cisgender & heterosexual peers. Even people who were not outright hateful are described as being “uncomfortable or awkward” to talk with. While not being bullied into the ground is wonderful, it is not by itself a sufficient measure of whether LGBT students are truly being accepted by their peers. Not being able to make or keep good friends is damaging in its own right. Humans thrive in communities, and being rejected by your community directly or indirectly is a recipe for heartache.

But with tolerance and attitudes towards queer people changing drastically over recent years, how does that data compare to a study done almost a decade later? According to “Inequities in Educational and Psychological Outcomes Between LGBTQ and Straight Students in Middle and High School”, published in 2011 by Joseph P. Robinson and Dorothy L. Espelage, transgender students still experience lower rates of school belongingness and higher rates of unexcused absences, victimization, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts compared to students who did not identify as LGBTQ (called “straight students” in the study, but heterosexual transgender students were not counted among them). While the increase in risk was not as dramatic as the 2002 publication, this still cannot be considered a “good” situation for students to be in. The authors also noted the “pervasive” harassment of transgender students by both students and staff, and how it led to transgender students feeling unsafe at school. It is difficult to imagine any students learning to their fullest potential while also fearing for their safety - and with teachers participating in the harassment, students may feel as though they have no one left to turn to. Additionally, the 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Survey found that 77% of transgender students are harassed in some way (verbal, physical, and/or sexual) in their K-12 classes. The harassment is extreme enough that roughly 1 in 5 transgender students feel like they have to leave their school because of it (Trumble).

This is why protections for transgender people are so vital, with Title IX protections being a crucial line of defense. Originally enacted in 1972 to protect against “discrimination based on sex” in educational institutions that recieve public funding, it was intended to prevent discrimination against cisgender women . However, due to its nonspecific wording, its protections have successfully been extended to transgender students & gender identity. This protection was given support during the Obama administration, undercut during the Trump administration, then later made official by the Biden administration (McNamarah) (ed.gov). Title IX allows transgender students to be treated equally with their cisgender peers - while this may not extend to being called a chosen name or being taught queer history, it does allow a transgender man to use the men’s restroom, or for a transgender woman to be held to the same dress code that her cisgender women classmates must follow. Being treated similarly to other students is immensely useful in the effort of normalizing queerness, which in turn helps the long term eductation & health outcomes of students. It’s not “special treatment” that transgender people seek - quite the opposite, being treated like anyone else is what provides the best result. 

While some feel the urge to protect the “innocence” of their children, to shield them from “complex” ideas of gender and sexuality, consider this: the transgender student is routinely denied that innocence. They are made painfully aware of their gender every time they are harassed for entering a bathroom that conflicts with others’ perception of them, and made to feel an outcast when they have to use the nurse’s bathroom or a private single-stall restroom away from their peers. They are made to feel like an outsider when they have to change for P.E. in the coach’s office or a bathroom stall while their peers change in the men’s or women’s locker rooms. Being treated by peers and authorities alike as being something revolting, or even just something irreconcilably different from what they consider themselves to be, is isolating to say the least. Rejection in social spaces, especially when enforced or encouraged by people in power, can be the difference between life & suicide for students, and this opinion of how much they’re worth to others is something that they will carry into adulthood. Fortunately, legal protections play a vital role in reducing the alienation of transgender students from their peers, subsequently reducing their risk of suicide and increasing their sense of safety and belonging. But while the situation for transgender students has undeniably improved, this experience of rejection and violence is still a reality for far too many. There is still a marked difference in outcomes that cannot be appreciated as a stopping point.

Works Cited

McNamarah, Chan Tov. "On the Basis of Sex(ual Orientation Or Gender Identity): Bringing Queer Equity to School with Title IX." Cornell Law Review, vol. 104, no. 3, March 2019, p. 745-[i]. HeinOnline.

Muñoz-Plaza, Corrine, et al. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students: Perceived Social Support in the High School Environment.” The High School Journal, vol. 85, no. 4, University of North Carolina Press, 2002, pp. 52–63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40364353.

Robinson, Joseph P., and Dorothy L. Espelage. “Inequities in Educational and Psychological Outcomes Between LGBTQ and Straight Students in Middle and High School.” Educational Researcher, vol. 40, no. 7, [American Educational Research Association, Sage Publications, Inc.], 2011, pp. 315–30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41239204.

Trumble, Sarah, and Nathan Kasai. Protecting Transgender Students, and All Students, in School. Third Way, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep34314.

“U.S. Department of Education Confirms Title IX Protects Students from Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education, 16 June 2021, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-confirms-title-ix-protects-students-discrimination-based-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity.