Key transgender support was missing

On Sept. 19, the District 211 Board of Education held its monthly meeting and gave the community an opportunity to express its opinions about the proposed new locker room policy for transgender students that will if passed put an end to the current discriminatory practice mandating curtains behind which those students must dress and undress.

There were many eloquent statements supporting the new policy and commending the board for its courage. These statements came in large part from parents and professionals with experience of actual transgender young people who they know pose no danger or threat to anyone except in the minds of the transphobic opposition.

But there were a couple of groups missing that, had they been there, would have been a powerful, perhaps decisive voice answering the bigoted and willfully ignorant. Where were the teachers, coaches, social workers and nurses of District 2ll? Why weren't they in evidence standing with the students they work with and teach every day?

One parent of a transgender child in the district told me privately her daughter was afraid to come to this meeting and hear the angry and frightened rhetoric of the opposition. Perhaps if her teachers had shown up as an outspoken phalanx to support her, she would have dared come herself.

And where was the teachers union spokesperson supporting the 211 board and speaking passionately on behalf of fairness and social justice? It doesn't cost the union a nickel to stand with these kids. Why leave the board hanging to take the heat alone?

A united front would be a ringing endorsement of full and equal rights for the district's transgender students and, by extension, for all its other minorities as well.

Roger Fraser

Rolling Meadows