Include voices of students in debate on transgender

If you look through our high school yearbooks, we are probably not the students you would place together. One of us is a freshman; one is looking seriously at colleges to attend. We are in different sports, different clubs, in different friend groups - one of us was even Homecoming Queen.

The thing that connects us is that we are all students in Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 high schools. And we have learned an important lesson in our schools. We have learned to always treat others with tolerance, understanding and respect. We have been taught to show this tolerance even, and especially, when someone is different from you.

It is this lesson in respect that has brought us together to ask for our district's leadership to respect our classmates who are transgender.

Dist. 211 schools have been the center of a national news story these last two years about letting students who are transgender use the restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. While the news has taken many sides, it has largely ignored an important source - the voice of the students, and as students, we feel this is not a controversy.

We have heard the debates about what happens in our locker rooms. But we cannot help but notice that there is false information driving this argument. We would like to have our voices heard, and we want it to be clear that students do not completely undress in the locker rooms. No one in a high school locker room is comfortable; everyone wants privacy. Every student is trying to keep on as much of their clothes as possible. In fact, sometimes we even put our gym shorts over our leggings. Even students who are not transgender choose to change in the bathroom stalls. All students try to find private places to change - not the other way around. It's an uncomfortable place for everyone and no one is worried about what anyone else is doing.

Having someone who is transgender in the locker room or restroom does not make these spaces any more uncomfortable. We wish that the schools could see that and honor the gender identity of all students in District 211. The district should be helping transgender students, not putting more obstacles in front of them. They face enough already.

We know there might be some students fearful of transgender students in the locker room, and we want the district to be respectful of these students. But as a school district, their answer to everything should be more education, not less. We should have discussions on what it means to be transgender; and we must honor everyone's opinion, but everyone's opinion should be based on correct information. Students and the school board need to realize that people who are transgender are more likely to be victims of violence and attack, not the other way around.

So much of the controversy around this issue has been about anger and disagreement. But as students, there is something we can agree on - that more of this conversation should be about respect and fairness for our classmates, because transgender or not, they are our classmates and friends.

Mandy Logan is a high school student in Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211. This essay was co-written by other District 211 students Grace Goodwin, Khloe Drahos, Alyssa Williams and Delaney Dolen.