One little girl was told that, though her sisters could use the little girls’ room, she had to go to the nurse’s office or teacher’s lounge instead. Colorado decided that the school doesn’t have the right to tell her what gender they want her to be.
Coy Mathis has two sisters—she is, actually, one in a set of triplets. Coy, though, was born genetically male.
When Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain, CO, told her that she couldn’t use the girls’ bathroom, she didn’t understand why.
“They’re saying I’m a boy when really I’m a girl,” Coy said in an interview.
As young as 18 months, her parents, Kathryn and Jeremy, said that she was already identifying as a girl.
The school sent a letter to the Mathis home in December to tell them that one of their daughters wouldn’t be allowed in the girls’ bathroom.
[We] 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. 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.
Children’s Hospital Boston, however, states that transgender children can start hormone therapy treatment before puberty, which will prevent their anatomy from developing in an unwanted way and help them transition through puberty as their true gender.
When the school refused to consider budging, the Mathis family went to court to show that their daughter was being discriminated against. They were concerned that Coy, who had been dressing as a girl already, would start to be bullied or stigmatized because of the way the school treated her.
According to Fox 31 Denver, transgender children are an under-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. […]
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. […]
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.
The school’s district attorney insisted that Eagleside elementary was in compliance with the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act because public schools there are not required to let transgender students use the restrooms for their self-identified gender.
The Colorado Civil Rights Division, however, ruled in favor of Coy, saying that the school’s policy created “an environment that is objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating or offensive.”
“Colorado has shown, once again, that it completely supports the equal rights of the transgender community,” said Krista Whipple of the Gender Identity Center of Colorado. “We can now tell our children they don’t have to be afraid of who they are when they go to school.”
Her mother was ecstatic. “Schools should not discriminate against their students, and we are thrilled that Coy can return to school and put this behind her. All we ever wanted was for Coy’s school to treat her the same as other little girls. We are extremely happy that she now will be treated equally.”
Though some people have openly questioned the Mathis’ decision to put their daughter through the stress of court, they want to show their daughter that they are proud of her and she should have be proud of who she is. “We’ve been criticized for being public because they’re saying, ‘Well, you’re stigmatizing your child.’ But we’re not because we’re showing her and the world that it’s OK to be who she is,” Kathryn said.
The family had moved to Denver to take care of the medical needs of one of their other children, but Coy has been home-schooled during the trial so that she would not get harassed during the proceedings.
Kathryn said Coy was all smiles when she learned what the courts had decided. “She jumped up and down and said, ‘I get to go back to school and make new friends!'”
Video: AP/Sydney Morning Herald
Photo: Mathis Family
“Children’s Hospital Boston, however, states that transgender children can start hormone therapy treatment before puberty”
I still find this troubling, after all I’m not an astronaut today- though I wanted to be one as a pre-pubescent…
Anyone know where the anti-circumcision crowd lands on this subject?
Honestly, I’m curious, not breaking balls.
I would strongly argue that our perception of gender is much more deeply entrenched than of occupation. Jobs and occupational avenues change throughout life, without us deciding to change genders as we go.
Thx that gets me a little closer to gettin my head around this.