 of the committee that puts on this event every year, and the Queer of Cuarosonis is a community group. Everyone, anyone is welcome. The Queer of Cuarosonis began in 2016, and we just tried to create LGBTQ programming and also organizing about LGBTQ issues. So next slide, please. Well, could you exit out of it and then restart it because I added a slide. That's probably why, or it's missing. Doesn't matter. So just some more information on the Queer of Cuarosonis. We meet every first Tuesday of the month. So if you're interested in coming our next meeting, I believe it's September 3rd, and we always meet here at 6 p.m. So if you're interested, please come by. We'll go pretty quick now. So on the screen behind me is for our monthly, our monthly concert called Noche Azul. And it's always pretty much the third Saturday of every month. And this month's theme is Africana Latina. And so admission is $7, more or less, if you can pay $7, but if you cannot, we will not turn anyone away. And we also serve concessions at all of our concerts. How many of you have heard of Las Tesoros de San Antonio? Not too many, but you are hearing about them now. And so they are very important women who are from the West Side of San Antonio and they're singers. And there used to be four in their group, but as time has passed, we have two passed away. And so the remaining two are Blanca and Beatriz. And they will be slain at the Pearl August 30th, 6.30, and it's free. And they will be accompanied with Azul and Eva Ibarra. Mi barrio no se vende. How many of you have seen signs around San Antonio, people's yards, saying mi barrio no se vende. A few of you. While you can get those signs here at the Esperanza, they're by donation and we encourage you to get them, put them in your lawn. If you don't have a lawn, put them in your window. You're in an apartment. But it's a campaign that we're doing to try to stop gentrification. And especially on the West Side, I don't know, if many of you all know, but the Amazon Apache courts are scheduled to be demolished. And also, I don't know if you all know, the West Side has put out the location, but there's a big open field across from our location. So they're gonna be building high rise apartments that aren't affordable for the majority of San Antonio. And so it's just a really important issue to get involved in. We have cafecitos, little meetings on every second and fourth Wednesday at our West Side location, which is 816 South Colorado Street. If you have any questions, again, you can ask me or any of the staff here. We're all wearing these little name tags. Next slide. All right, so we're gonna be starting a new museum, Museo del West Side at our West Side location. And so if you all have any artifacts or photos or oral histories pertaining to the West Side, please let us know. We have a staff member here, Sarah Gold, who is kicking off this. She's the one mainly facilitating the new Museo. And next slide. There's also another exhibit that's gonna be in 2020. So women and activism on the West Side. So all West Side, but the first one is gonna be in the fall. And this one's gonna be in 2020. So if you have any photos or oral histories that we can document, please let us know. Next slide. All right, so we have Lermas. How many of you have heard of Lermas? It's on the West Side. It's the Historical Conjunto Club. And the Esperanza a few years ago helped to save it from being demolished. It is a historical landmark. And so we just started construction this summer to restore it. And it's gonna be another community space just like this one is the Esperanza. So we're gonna have music there, hoping to have a library. And so if you're interested and want to get more involved, we are trying to raise some money to finish that project. And how many of you have heard of our peace market? Yeah, so this year we're having the 30th annual peace market. It's a three-day market indoors and outdoors. It's always the weekend after Thanksgiving. So if you miss one year, you can always come the next year. We invite international and local vendors to sell their handcrafted goods. And it's our alternative to Black Friday. So we have music, we have shut down the streets. We have a stage in the street. We have vendors in the street. And we serve food all day. We listen to music all day. And it's just a really fun time. So if you all can come, please do. And if you all want to donate any food or you have a good relationship with a restaurant you frequent all the time and you think they might want to donate some food to us, we would really appreciate that because we do serve food to the community throughout all three days. And then I want to thank the volunteers today so, so much because we got so many volunteers and they were so needed and they made today just flow so easily. And so if you're a volunteer, you may already be standing, but please stand if you're not. Making sure we're safe outside. Next slide. And then just another reminder to please recycle. If you have any paper or cans or glass, we do have blue recycling bins near the restaurants. And then the last slide, I want to invite Rachel Jennings to the podium. She is a board member of the Esperanza and she's just going to talk a little bit about just going to introduce herself, but you know why does she support the Esperanza? Why she's a board member? And so please welcome Rachel Jennings. I was really trying to walk the walk and being a booth here in San Antonio. And some of you may have been here on July 27, which was the Transpala, which will be another annual event here at the Esperanza. We have shown Transplained Films, a documentary about Fabriz Salcedo, who is a trans woman originally from Mexico. There was another documentary about Miss Major, who is a trans woman here in the US. And we've had events trying to organize against the bathroom bill, which comes up under the slated session in Texas, and which is so important for us to work against. But we really are trying to walk the walk. And so to help support us in our efforts, it would be very meaningful if you could make a donation to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. We do have monthly donors, and in a moment Natalie will be passing out envelopes if any of you would like to sign up as monthly donors in any amount that you can give. Or you can make a one-time donation if you would prefer to do that. So either a one-time donation or if you could sign up as a monthly donor, it would really help support us in our efforts. And of course, as many of you know, this is a really difficult time in our country with legislation being passed against trans people and LGBT people and against refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants and people being detained and put in camps and taken away from their jobs that's happened in Mississippi. And so it really is important to step up and support organizations like the Esperanza. So I'm gonna leave it to Natalie now to again pass out envelopes if any of you would like to make a donation. Thank you. If you have any questions about how you can support the Esperanza, you can always ask me or any of the other staff. And then now we're gonna get the program started. I'm gonna invite Lauren Ferris, our moderator, a clear cura som, my friend to the stage. Natalie was actually a thinker when the queer cura som has got its start and we were both there at the meeting, the very first meeting of queer cura som is, this is amazing. The Esperanza center is a place I very much love. It is the very first place on earth and I truly felt like I could be there just be me and be safe. So if you can donate to Esperanza, I strongly encourage it. But let me start out by saying that over the next couple of weeks, a lot of kids are gonna be headed back to school and it's a difficult time to start school or to be in school, preschool, any part of school is difficult. When you're trans, it's sometimes almost impossible. We work with a lot of school districts and we see a lot of things. I'd like to tell you one of the things that's very exciting to us, we're encouraging more and more school districts to be active, to be fully inclusive, to live into full inclusion, to change policies if they can but more than fighting for policies, we're fighting for support, affirmation, and love for every child. That's what we believe is important and that's what I hope you hear tonight. I wanna begin by saying that a lot of organizations really work hard to put this on. Two of them are the Transgender Education Network of Texas which I'm a part of. An organization that helped make TENT, we call Transgender Education Network of Texas TENT, the organization that helped make TENT what it is today both financially and emotionally support and a lot of other things, the ACLU of Texas. I was in charge for TENT for the Trans Lobby Day in Austin and I'd taken over kinda late and so I called someone, someone put me in touch with a gentleman at the ACLU and I said, help, I really need help. And he said, Lauren, whatever you mean, we're gonna get through this and we'll make it an amazing event. And it was an amazing event and we, and he worked every moment of the 2017 and 2019 but with me personally in 2017 in making that a very successful legislative session for fighting against the things that might hurt us. Without further ado, I'd like to invite up here to speak from the ACLU of Texas, Brad, Bridget and my friend. So we've been really fortunate as an organization we're inviting us in. So what I'm gonna do is talk a little bit about to know your rights presentation. We're gonna make sure you understand both students and parents, the rights of students in schools because there's a misconception sometimes that your civil liberties and your free speech ends when you walk into a public school. So we'll go to the next slide. So just a couple of things we wanted to be really clear about here when students are transitioning to school. Your gender expression is protected. It is protected by the Constitution and by Title IX. And recently Gavin Graham just won his case. I don't know who he's voting for. So schools, there are a lot of obstacles that you have to deal with, including restroom access, locker room access, name, pronouns, how the elected officials are going to classify you with records, but you have the outcome. We don't have specifically clear guidelines yet on that but most schools are working to accommodate students who may transition and if they aren't, you can contact us and we will help to hopefully write the course a little bit. Next slide please. So this is a really good resource, Gender Spectrum. So it's genderspectrum.org. And there's really good resources on it, including a gender transition plan. So if your student is planning to transition while at school, we would basically recommend you talk to your counselor and possibly take a copy of this particular document as a plan that the two of you can work together. And that would be administration being involved early on and you're going to be able to get more support, hopefully, if you're coming in really prepared to have this forgot to say, my pronouns are E. And those are my pronouns, they're not my preferred pronouns. No one's pronouns are preferred, they're just your pronouns. So that's one of the things that I think schools sometimes have a hard time with is using proper pronouns. So when schools are refusing to acknowledge the student's gender identity by not updating their school records, by not updating their names, by not attending students or student ID's or the yearbook, or associating the names of the pronouns that actually reflect who they are, then we know that that would be really impactful in the negative way of students and can affect academic performance as well as can be emotionally upsetting, it could be psychologically damaging. So we want to ensure that folks understand that pronouns are an important part of this. Your pronouns are your pronouns, they are not preferred, your name is your name, it is how you should be addressed. So discrimination against trans students in that way is why I like the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution in Title IX. So if it's happening, we need to know what's happening, and usually if you're beginning a school district that you're in, you may be able to have an easier time of getting folks to accept that, but we are in Texas, so the odds are good that you're going to run into folks who are not too happy about being accommodating to trans or LGBT students in general. Next slide. So bathroom type of science, which is favorite piece of why I work. So schools have a really important role in playing in making sure that students have the same access to the same opportunities, right? And when nothing's a safe environment for learning, it also means full participation in the activities of the school. So when we have students who are transitioning and they're being told they have to use separate facilities, that's sending a message that they're unfit to be on the same level as all their students, right? So most of the experts agree that trans kids who are discriminated against in that way are going to suffer academically, socially, and are at a higher risk of depression. So this is a public health situation as well, right? Not just about students' pronouns or the name that they want to be called by, this is a public health situation and it's an educational situation. So that's why it's really important for trans kids to have access to the bathroom that's in importance with their general identity. We all know what bathroom we need to use, so we should just respect that. So freedom of speech, including on public school campuses, the only time at school that you don't have free speech or when your free speech might be limited, is if your free speech is disruptive, so of course, material or learning material. And what I mean by that is if Alex and I are having a conversation at lunch and we're talking about my general identity, that's not disruptive, I'm allowed to do that. If we're sitting in a classroom learning math and I jump up in the back of a bird and scream, I'm gay, disruptive. So one is disruptive, one is not, right? And your speech is a restrictive, disruptive speech. Is it speech that somebody doesn't like? It's disruptive. And there are clear definitions of what constitutes disruptive. And just talking about general identity or else it's a key issue, it's not specifically disruptive. So if somebody doesn't like your speech, that doesn't mean it's disruptive, just means they don't like it. And I'm sure some of you just like somebody else's speech at some point as well. The other thing I do wanna add is you can write as a student or talk about a few issues in content if it's relevant to an assignment. So if you're asked to a history paper on a hero of yours and you choose Marsha P. Johnson or somebody over there, you're allowed to do that. And the future can't say you can't pick those people. It's not just about your comment. Next slide please. So your freedom of expression includes how to address. Does anybody have, does anyone know what I mean when I say gender, stereotype, clothing, clothing that's gender, stereotype? Can somebody give me an example? Gender, clothing. Progress. Address, correct. So just because, so yeah. If your school's dress code says that you have to dress a specific way or uniforms, that's a different story. But just because you're wearing something that might be considered controversial doesn't mean it's not enough. As long as it's something that any person can actually wear at school. So your right to freedom of expression extends to your gender clothing as well. So you can, if anyone in your school can wear a skirt and you identify as a boy and you wanna wear a skirt, you're allowed to do that. If anyone in your school can wear a tuxedo and you identify as a girl and you wanna wear a tuxedo, you can do that. As long as the clothing that you're wearing is allowed by anyone in the school, it's allowed to be worn by everyone. You'll get pushback on it, absolutely uncertain school districts, but that's what we're done for. The thing that school districts can do and the courts have said school districts can do is they can use dress codes to instill discipline. And typically what that's gonna mean is they might have a dress code that includes things like your hair length or might specifically say, you know, if a skirt has to be at a certain inches away from the knee or the ankle. But beyond that, they can't tell you specifically you cannot wear gender clothing. Next slide. The other thing that you have access to as a student is you have a right to privacy. So you have a right to be out at school, so if you choose to be out, you have that right to do that at school. You can discuss your life, but we are at school. The other thing that if you choose not to be out, or even if you're out of school, the school doesn't have a right to out you to anyone. So if you are a student and your parents don't know that you're LGBTQ, but your counselor does, your counselor cannot call, should not call your parents and have that discussion with them, that's a right to privacy that we all have, including students, but not so much. Okay. So we always encourage folks to, especially LGBTQ folks, but students in general, should know what the school's bullying and anti-garassment policies are. Some have really, really good policies. Some have none of the system policies, but we do want people to understand how bullying is done within your school and what the report she had of a student is making counter. So the way you can do that is Google, right? So you can do two slides, please. You can go to Google and you can Google something like San Antonio ISD Board Policy, non-discrimination policy, LGBTQ policy. Next slide. What that'll bring you is to a school district's website and then you can navigate the website to find out what the board policy is. On the next slide, we're gonna get an idea of what happens in San Antonio or its policy. The next slide, please, thank you. So some school districts have policies that are extended to gender identity expression and sexual orientation. Some have policies that are maybe less inclusive, maybe they haven't been updated in a long time, but most schools will have a policy in place for how to deal with bullying. And if your school administration or your ISD doesn't have a non-discrimination policy on the books, talk to us as well, maybe we can help change that. So this is an online resource that the ACLU built in conjunction with TENT and Equality Census. This is TXTransKids.org. And this is an online hub that's designed to basically be a one-stop shop for questions people may have about kids transitioning in schools and what the rights may need. So we really are promoting that. We have parts downstairs that we can eat them. If you want to distribute them to folks who may need them, by all means, take as many as you want. And it's a really important resource and up until two years ago, probably, there was nothing that was a clearing house with this type of information. So we really encourage folks to look into it. It'll tell you things about how to create a GSA or school dress code information that we just had a covered, access to facilities like law firms and restaurants and bullying and harassment policies. So, next. So this is the big one. If you think your rights have already been violated at school, number one, we want you to keep calm about it and we want you to document everything. So we need you to stay as calm as possible and remember that throughout that process you have rights as a student because your rights are protected by the Constitution in time and time. We don't want you to disobey or resist the faculty or the staff depending on you to do something. We want to start documenting everything immediately. We want to know who you were talking to, who was talking to you, who was in specific meetings, what you were told to do. If you can do things in writing, that's always useful. And then make a formal complaint and then if you need more force behind it, you can contact ACLU. And our website is ACLUTX.org. Next slide. Or you can contact me. This is my email up on the screen right now. And there's also our social channels on there and you can always tweet at us or tag us on Instagram if you're trying to get information to us. So that's all I have, it's really brief. But if you need more information, again, you can email me. You can go to ACLUTX.org. You can go to TXTransKids.org. And I'll be sitting around for the rest of the night. And if you have other questions, just come up. Thank you. So everyone knows, we're going to have an extended question and answer period. So if you could hold your questions and Brad will be back up here, everyone except, and if he wants to stay, that would be wonderful. Everyone except Councilman Tramino, I think, will be back up here to answer questions. And I'm not putting him on the spot. But I want to use that as a segue to the fact that you are all sick currently sitting in San Antonio City Council District 1. And it's a pretty amazing district. And it includes most of downtown, several other parks. And one of the people that supports our community, the most, is our City Councilman. Tonight, we have 100 backpacks that will be available downstairs right afterward. And those were provided by our City Council Office. And this time, I'd like to invite up here and introduce you to my City Councilperson. And put more, I think, my friend someone who's helped me and our community a great deal. We're very proud that I've been here. Main Street Pizza, we're gonna be giving away with the backpacks, I hope you kids get a chance to get one of this, but Anza Center, for always being that place. It's that place that Lawrence said is welcoming, it's a safe place. You guys do great work, and I'm always proud of that. And I feel great coming here too. I want to just mention that this is an important time, and I can remember when I was a kid. Just about the time that we're gonna go back to school, it was kind of scary. And you kind of comment, you really want to go to school. And the last thing you want to worry about is some of the supplies, some of the things that you gotta go through just before you go to school. So that's why it's so amazing that we have this event because it is a scary time for all of us, but for our kids especially. And we should comfort all our kids. And I'm here to tell you that you have a friend in District One, we have a friend on the city council. I'm proud of the fact that the San Antonio IZ is doing what they're doing, and we hope to continue to push other school districts to have inclusive policies as well. And we'll be a voice for you as well. You may not live in District One, and so I encourage you to call your elected official in the district that you do live in. If you do not get a response, call me. 210-207-7279, you'll get a response from me. I can assure you that we're very, very proud of our community, we're proud of the diversity, and we're proud of the inclusive nature of the San Antonio IZ, and we'll always be. Thank you. So every year, we always have someone representing school districts, representing the schools, speak. This year, I would like to welcome up here someone that I know personally, someone that I have, she's been to the presentations, we do our tent trainings. She has also invited us to speak in her class. She teaches at Trinity University. She is, she attended Sam Houston State University and Texas Tech universities. She has practiced school psychology in Illinois, New Mexico and Texas. She currently works as a supervisor in North Side IST's Psychology Services Department. And aside from her passion for her profession, she is also an ardent soccer fan and referee and a mother of two toddlers, one of which we are happy to have her with us this evening. And she enjoys staying constantly busy, and without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Laura Rankin from NISD. So she asked me specifically, to talk to you guys today about comorbidity. And so what that means is when we have one thing that we classify as a disorder, and we have other disorders that happen even currently with it. And so a lot of our trans students that come into our districts, if they've been seen by professionals, may have diagnoses of gender dysphoria. That diagnosis in and of itself is very controversial. It used to be until 2013 when gender identity disorder, it was changed to hopefully take some of the stigma out of it. It removed the word disorder from the term. There's still controversy about it, whether it should be a diagnosable condition at all, but we'll kind of put that to the side. The problem with talking about gender dysphoria and other conditions that might be co-occurring, such as anxiety, depression, other psychological disorders, there's not a lot of research on this topic. The reason is because, first of all, to get really large data sets that we like to see, those data sets that have thousands of participants in it, those are usually funded by national organizations, the CDC and things of that nature. And it's been very, very difficult to get questions about gender identity, even included on some of those surveys. For example, one of our best, very most often used things when we're looking at these types of risk factors and what kind of mental health services do certain populations need, is the youth risk behavior surveillance service? It goes out to high school students, nine through 12th grade, every two years. And that has questions on pretty much everything, on bullying, on diet, on smoking, drinking, illegal drug use, sexual habits, pretty much everything under the sun. It's a tremendously large data set and it's used for lots of different things. But there is no question on there, as of today, for gender identity, asking a student what his or her gender identity is. There are questions about sexual orientation. Even those have been caught by certain states saying, you know, you're sexualizing our children. How dare you ask about these things? These are children, you know, that kind of resistance. Again, I don't intend to get political, but even the steps we have made in including gender identity in some of these large data sets are being rolled back under the current administration. There's adult surveys that do ask about gender identity and we're finding that in these newest versions of the surveys, these questions have been deleted. And the rationale for that is that, well, just not enough people realize that they were trans, so we just dropped it. It's plenty of excuses at best. However, we do know that students who identify as trans in the school do have a higher rate of depression and anxiety, those more internalizing mood disorders. We know that from studies that have been conducted recently, but more so of studies that have been conducted overseas, mainly in Europe, where they've been much more open to this kind of research. Because there's not a lot of data, there's not a lot of evidence-based practices regarding how do we treat this population? And so what we have to do is we have to rely on, well, this worked over here, so let me try it here. And kind of try and try and try and hopefully find something that works. And especially in the schools, psychologists don't like that approach. We employ evidence, we like data, we like numbers. It's like show us something that has been proven to work. Because especially say you work in a high school setting, I only have four years with a student. You know, I don't have time to try and fail or try and fail, it's not going to work. But like you said, when you're thinking about going out and voting and researching candidates, that can be something that's on your radar as well. It's not always the big ticket items like the bathroom bills and things like that. We all don't even do anything smaller. But in terms of what you can do for your students now that are going into schools this year, all over San Antonio, I should have probably started with the disclaimer that I am in no way acting as a Northside most person today. The views expressed for my own and not those of Northside ISD. I think that's the statement I was supposed to read. Something along those lines to get the picture. However, what we're trying to do, at least in Northside, that's where I can speak to, is we're trying to get out the word that kind of knowledge is the first step. We would hope for universal acceptance. Northside is a huge district. We have 180 campuses with more being added every year. In my own department, we have about 100 school psychologists that are spread throughout the district. And so we're starting in our department. We're doing the safe zone training. We're calling in Lauren and other experts in this area to teach us what we need to know. Because a lot of people, if you say, oh, well, you know, are you accepting of everyone? Oh, yeah, sure. We teach everyone. We don't care. Black, green, yellow, whatever we take. And that's not enough. It's not enough to just say, yes, I'm accepting of everybody. Because there's a difference between tolerance and acceptance. You can say I tolerate this, but there are some people that you get the just what's behind them. Yes, all tolerating. It's not the same as I accept you for who you are. And you are welcome in our school. And so we really try to get that message out there that it's not just about being tolerant. You know, you have to take that extra step. So some of the things that we recommend for our school psychologists are like the GSA. You know, we're not faculty, but if that club needs a sponsor, you know, if the GSA is having a big sale, go buy a brownie. You know you won't want anything. Buy an extra one to take them home. Support the students. We had a student that came to our school and I worked at one of the high schools in our district. And all of a sudden one day I got a teacher running in and they said, Laura, there's a girl trying to register and it's not a girl, it's a boy. What do we do? In my mind I'm like, is the registrar right here? What's the poem here? And it's, what do we do? I mean, when he, her, you ask. You know, this might be your first experience with a person that identifies as transgender. And that's okay if you don't know what apps she told you. She was a girl, her name is Andrea or whatever, you know. So that's what you say. We hide on the paper. And there are certain circumstances where that's not always, we can't act in a way we would like to. For example, our special ed records, we have to have a legal name. You know, and if the name hasn't been legally changed, then whatever name we have on file has gone out of court. But we give our people the tools to say, you can have the legal name at the top of the report, but you can put a little disclaimer in the first sentence that, you know, identifies as female and her name is this, and that would be the name that's used throughout this report. You know, and the things with the bathrooms, maybe the school isn't as supportive as we would like, is, you know, using the bathroom that students choosing. But we can make it clear that that student and their family that, hey guys, we know this hasn't happened yet, but we're fighting for you. We talk as a principal. We wrote a letter to the superintendent. And I had a student that came to me and I told him again, you know, hey, I'm sorry. I know this isn't a hassle for you. You're having to go to the nurse's office or use this other restroom. And she told me, you know what, Miss, it's okay because I know even though you haven't done it, that you're trying. And that means a lot. You know, so if we can't change the policy right now, we can at least make it clear that we're on your side that they support you. So for your students, there is a small population that comes into the schools and they do have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and parents will write letters saying, well, I want them evaluated for special education. I want to see if they can get some counseling in the schools. I want to see what there is that can be done for these students. Because from a recent survey we've known that these needs support. 85% of them reported being verbally harassed at school because of their gender identity. 50% report being physically harassed just because they're shoved into a locker or something by nature. And 25% report is actually being physically assaulted. So harm, punched, kicked, thrown down to the floor. You know, been the victim of someone with a weapon. 25% is a huge number. You know, it doesn't matter how many kids the whole population is. That is a huge number. And more so on the educational side of it over half of students that identified as transgender said that they missed at least one week of school the previous year because they were scared to go for whatever reason. And so we know that that impacts them. It impacts them not only emotionally but also physically. And so going to school and being afraid, being unsupported is not a situation that we want to put any of our students in at any time. If you have a student that is suffering with depression or anxiety, in addition to identifying as transgender, there are some supports for you. Special education is an option. If you have a significant mood disorder or emotional need, there's a process that differs for every district. But something that we're also doing in Northside ISD and you have to contact your district to know if this is applicable in your district. But we are also offering what we call psych consult services. So typically services with school psychologists or reserve for students and special ed that need significant help have been through the evaluation process. It's very likely. But on these psych consults we can have a parent sign consent and say I would like you to be a safe place for my students. I would like them to be able to come and see you once a week if they want to. We're just on an as-need basis so that we can be one extra person to support that student. So check with your district check with your individual school and see if that might be an option for you or your student. That is all I have. Thank you all for coming. Thank you so so much Dr. Rankin. She is with a district that her voice and everything she said and how supportive she is of our community is reflective of much of the administration of Northside ISD. And when the bathroom bill was in Austin there was one superintendent who was willing to stand up and say I oppose this and that was the superintendent of Northside ISD. Their policies are not inclusive but they live into it as much more than many do. Dr. Rankin can be a great resource for you in the district if you need assistance or if you're having issues. Not every district in San Antonio is quite as inclusive is quite as welcoming. Some have schools that do well and you'll hear more about those this evening. But I encourage you if you have specific questions about how can I help my child in school Dr. Rankin will be here and she will help answer some of those questions as well and the parents and others. At this time he hates it when I see this to my boss I want to introduce you to someone who said the transgender education network of Texas has been around a long time but we were never truly recognized statewide as the organization that represented transgender community and organizations across the state and by HDLU and others but now thankfully we do have that recognition and one of the people probably the person that has the most to do with that is the person I'd like to introduce you to now he's the executive director of the transgender education network of Texas Emmett Schelling. Like Lauren said, my name is Emmett Schelling my pronouns are he, him, his and I need Tent which is transgender education network of Texas a statewide trans-led trans-focus organization here in the great state of Texas and we deal a lot with ledge which you heard a little bit about I don't want to really dive into that too much you get too political but I don't think it's a secret the way that our legislative body here in Texas is towards trans identified individuals and students unfortunately so a lot of our work centers around that during the odd number of years and the rest of our work is advocacy done through and educational plans we work really hard to do this work through a racial justice lens with an emphasis on the many intersections that make up one individual because contrary to popular belief being trans is not the only facet of transgender people's wholesome of who they are as people so I was asked to talk a little bit about what it's like to be a trans man to in a large sense sometimes we're an invisible population when the bathroom bill came around one of the things that I think shocked the legislators was when trans men started to visit their offices I'm Asian so I don't personally have a beard but we brought in a lot of trans men from all over the state and when they walked in they were like you're pushing this bathroom bill but essentially what you're going to do in the bathroom with your wife so what does that mean, what's the implication and it kind of did shine a light on I think the insidious motivation behind it right so trans masculine people trans men because they are largely sort of like invisible in a lot of ways because externally we don't face I think the same level of violence that trans women do I think it's very important for people to understand that that's why we really center that why we push that like we need to stand with trans women especially black trans women especially Latinx trans women because they are at a disproportionate rate for violence externally however when we're talking about trans men and trans masculine people we are at a a violence internally in terms of suicide our rates are just when people see the numbers it's very sobering, it's very shocking but a lot of the issues come from you know when trans men transition a lot of times we don't see role models personally the first like representation in the media that I saw of somebody that like whose story echoed mine and I finally was like A, I'm not like just imagining this and I'm not alone was boys don't cry so if anybody has seen that movie it's a very jolting movie as a child to see that and realize that your story connects some place and then to see where that story end because that story was also based on a real life situation that happened so when we talk about like trans men unfortunately we also need to talk about the role that we play in sometimes bringing some like facets of toxic masculinity of misogyny into trying to this world of how we're viewing it how we feel like what makes somebody a man and knowing who we are and knowing sometimes like fitting in it's not popular to say this but fitting in to some extent a degree of safety and so seeing for me seeing trans masculine people sort of mimic these really unhealthy attitudes and behavior is really heartbreaking and when I think about you know trans kids that are coming out like young trans masculine folks coming out I really feel that responsibility, that weight to hopefully be a better example to hopefully be able for trans kids like masculine feminine to look at and say I can be successful, I can be okay I can be safe because a lot of times unfortunately when we talk about a community we're talking about like these doom and gloom things and for a child who's already dealing with XYZ because of who they are and they cannot help it and then having a lack of positive representation of representation that is still oncologically like a binary trans man but like still hopefully we're doing better my hope is always that the work that I do will trickle down will help other trans kids to see that like the world is not all these statistics it's not all people that are against you and it's changing in a good way slowly, it's changing in a bad way sometimes anybody that turns on the news knows that but we're here and we're fighting and I have so much respect for parents who listen to their kids they believe their kids because it's a hard thing when I came out to my parents I lost my parents essentially so that piece of having your family, the people that are supposed to love you no matter what they're supposed to always be there for you abandon you and essentially tell you you are not worthy, you are not loved and you do not belong and something is wrong with you you know that the weight of when that happens I think is a trauma that it's very hard to wreck or have a hold which I think really ups the responsibility of the work that we do so I want to say thank you to everybody who came out, that's Browning Center ACLU and for the parents that came with your kids, thank you I often kind of look at parents or sporting their kids and fighting for them so hard and I think to myself in 20 years things will be different in 30 years things will be different maybe they won't be all the way different they will leave the earth but I'm already seeing change and a lot of it is thanks to the support, to love and the continued quest to educate ourselves to learn more and to learn how we can be better supported for kids that are trans and new face many more breasts under cisgender counterparts thank you quick show of hands and if you're not telling me that's okay too how many people do we have that work for schools in any capacity I'm not quite a few how many how about parents how many people actually know a trans person okay the rest of you you're probably wrong you probably do and just don't know you do or a trans child you just with a trans child they're just children one of the things that Dr. Rankin has taught me is not to talk about our trans children but about our children because they're just our children some of them just happen to be trans so I think it's really important that we have some place for youth to go for youth to find a safe place several years ago another parent school's parent and that parent's child decided that we needed a place it was a safe place for LGBTQ youth in San Antonio and that organization does amazing work that organization is called Fiesta Youth and one of the things about this program is we have kids come up and speak with their parents sometimes as part of the panel and this person spoke the year they got out of high school and they were very young and now I'm not going to say that much over but they are older still young but older I'd like to I'd like to introduce you to Lito from Fiesta Youth I'm one years old I'm a student at UTSA but as being passionate in science and mathematics I'm also very passionate in organizing it was as Laura mentioned four years ago I was let's just say that I came out when I was 16 years old and it was the first time that I was very very scared I was very very vulnerable to my parents and although they have always been very very accepting of all of their children of the life that we wanted to live they always emphasized that if there was anything that we needed to discuss they would be the ones to listen and tell us that they're going to love us no matter what it took me a really long time to realize that I was trans and when I came out she said you know what I love you regardless I'm going to call it doctors tomorrow and we're going to figure it out and it was the day after that we figured it out I met a therapist I met a new endocrinologist and we got my process started I think like a week later and I was just about to be a senior in high school you know I was very very involved I went to Jefferson High School I was in the band I was in the track and field I was also in an all girls society called the Martha Jefferson Randolph Society and every single program that I was in knew who I was and knew how passionate that I was that they automatically accepted me and they didn't really budge that I was transitioning they were always just there to accept me and keep me going and they made my process go so much easier it was after I graduated high school it was when I came across the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and I was one of the members that helped put it together deep we go to Sonets and we put together this panel because we wanted to make sure that other kids who were just like me that were transitioning to high school we needed some kind of administration to just help us and let them know that you know what there's kids just like us in high school some may not be out some are but a lot of the administration didn't know what they were going to do to help us so that's why we put this organization together along with that I'm also very very involved with Texas Rising and Urge and we focus a lot on equality, reproductive justice immigration reform, criminal justice reform and many other things but like Lauren mentioned, FESD Youth was the first program for that froming into what it is to be clear and how to be vulnerable and how to live the authentic lives that I wanted to live so now that you've heard my story I'm going to introduce some kids who I have had the pleasure of mentoring the past maybe four years that I just spent this summer so I'm going to go ahead and introduce Taylor and then see how we can go next she heard her pronouns Antonio for the last two weeks and that's just going through school was a interesting experience especially being born or raised in South Texas going to a very conservative church not every stop periodically I went and the older I got my parents split up and I went with my father going into middle school was already a sort of difficult time when you pile on puberty you're going to a new school parents are divorced and you're starting to question who you are you're just starting to figure out your life from your rights you're starting to question yourself who you want to be and that time alone is hard for anybody and I was raised in mentality boys or boys, girls or girls you can't be both you can only be one your gender roles and when I started middle school I started questioning and I started all I knew back then you were gay or you were straight I had no idea about anything LGBT related other than you're gay or you're not and so 6th grade I started questioning and I remember talking to one of my friends about it and my dad being the cautious parent would go through my phone every now and again and he saw these messages me talking to my friend about it and he sat me down and he told me look I don't care who you love who you are I'm going to love you no matter what because you are my son no matter what anybody else wants to say and so you know I went around 6th grade most of 7th grade thinking you know what maybe I'm just maybe I'm just gay you know by the time I hit 7th grade I got to meet a couple more friends who actually introduced me to the LGBT community you know and they explained to me that there's a whole spectrum there's a whole group of people that you know identify separately what they were assigned at birth who love someone of the same sex of the same gender who just love anybody because of who they are and it doesn't matter what they have you know these times as I said earlier are confusing but having people to go to certainly helped but also with those people who I knew I could go to I also ran into people who made me feel I wasn't that who I was wasn't right I dropped I dropped out of a lot of groups that I was in because of those kinds of people because I felt going to those groups I felt as though I couldn't be who I was that I had to fit a certain I had to fit a certain description I had to fit the ideal male you know and it was around this time when I started learning about what being transgender is what being LGBT man I started learning you know the sexual orientation gender identity binary you know I started to do all this research and by the time I entered you know my eighth grade year I was pretty sure that I was transgender you know I've been questioning at this point by almost two and a half years and so by the time I entered eighth grade I met a friend we'll call we'll call Jay I met my friend Jay and they introduced me to more more things about LGBT community that I never knew and with their help that's how I came up it's being called Taylor that's what really helped cement the idea that I am trans you know and it also helped because thanks to my friend Jay I managed to tell my father I am my dad told me when I came out to him he says he may not be the best parent to talk to you about it that he might not know as much as he wants to but he said none of it mattered as long as I was being safe and knew that I was doing what was right to me and I know not everybody not all not all teens, not all children have that same parent in their life but you know with that help I managed to be more open you know I've had my fair share of people being verbally assaulted in school hallways I've been pushed down to the ground you know I've been through my fair share of bullying just for being me but I tell myself there's going to be a day where I'll be able to walk the halls of my school I'll be able to walk down my neighborhood and I'll be able to feel comfortable in my own skin in my own body and I don't have to worry about someone coming up to me and telling me my way of life is wrong I'll be able to walk down the street live with whoever I want to live with love whoever I do and not be told that it's wrong there's going to be people who sadly will oppose everything we make strides every time we make strides there's sadly going to be people who push back but I know that with all this struggle going on with everything you know with people who push back I always have faith that one day we're all going to push through this through it all and make the changes that we know have to be made you know especially going to CSU time was this last Tuesday and I met some people who I never thought I'd actually I don't like being in large groups but being there was comforting I felt at home as if I had a place to be myself I want to let everyone in here know that no matter who you are no matter who you love there's always a place there's a place for everybody there's a place where you can be yourself and not have to deal with the people who don't like who don't like what you say you don't have to deal with the people who disagree with your way of life you don't have to deal with people telling your lies there's a place for everybody Thank you Taylor so much that was such an inspiring story now is we're going to give a little little story about what the experience is Hi I'm Ciara and I'm 16 years old and I'm going to be a junior at Keeson school I came out as trans at school last year to shop for and my mom and my dad we went to the school counselor and the principal and her counselor to talk about transitioning and from there the principal went and told the other teachers about what was going on in the situation and I'm very fortunate that all my teachers were very accepting of it and were very willing to help me throughout this process however, a lot of the teachers I had had before and some of them know me since 7th grade so sometimes I need to be reminded that they need to use these pronouns in this name and if there was a problem I could always go back to the school's principal and talk to them about that I didn't have much of a problem with bullying because my school has a very strict policy and bullying and it's a pretty small school and they don't tolerate anything with sports for my school I had to have one sports credit to graduate and doing a sport volleyball or soccer that was half a credit so I was lucky that my freshman year I did do volleyball which is an all-year-old sport at my school and I was not then so it was fine and there was another sport tennis that was coed so I did that and that finished my credit completely however for changing in the locker rooms I didn't change in the locker rooms because well I can't go with the girls because I'm a wanted girl but I was still a little scared to use the men's locker room so I would go to one of the many gender neutral bathrooms around campus which worked out pretty well I think I'm very fortunate to have my mom because she's helped me a lot through this process and she's working to get my name to do market change she's got me binders doctors and everything so thanks to my mom she's sitting in the back there students trying to transition all their schools to be polite with your teachers don't embarrass them in front of the classes if you embarrass them they're not going to be very willing to help you because while they're embarrassed nobody likes them or it could be they pull in them aside after class until they pay you have to leave the other pronouns or sending them an email afterwards and to be patient with them if they've known you a long time it takes a little bit for them to adjust just like when you come out to your parents it takes a little bit for them to adjust to you continuing to gain pronouns because you're so used to the other ones also don't come out if you're uncomfortable to if you're unsafe if you're not ready I actually didn't come out my freshman year at school but I was nowhere near ready to do so and I guess some tips I have for teachers is to educate yourselves you don't have to know every single die on every eye but just know the gist of what being transgender means would help a whole lot of students instead of just not knowing about it at all and then comes out and says hey, could you please use these same pronouns you're not like it doesn't come at you from out of the dark and also, using one's correct name and pronouns isn't a thing of leave or pull out of the same point it's an item of respect but if you don't use your pronouns you're disrespecting your student so you should always be respectful to your students so using the correct name pronouns isn't less and for teachers also to be patient with them because trans listening is a very slow process getting to the point of medically trans listening and socially trans listening it's very slow so if your student may not look the gender that they receive themselves as they'll get there, just be patient with them thank you the most important and special part I'm going to introduce who I'm not going to introduce tonight she'll be starting middle school this year four years ago and she had just come out and she was really struggling in a north side ISD school but she's doing really well in the school schools are doing really well with her so we have always invited her back for an update on how she's doing this year a little jazz doesn't want to be here jazz doesn't want to be here because jazz just wants to be a kid just a kid not a trans kid, just a kid and so we completely understand that but I want to give jazz a round of applause give her a round of applause so now we're going to invite a panel to come up a panel of mostly parents and another student and a parent and her son and hopefully they will talk about the summer experience they have traveling traveling is themselves living with kids of their gender what an amazing thing so first I'd like to introduce amazing moms I'd like to introduce you to Ginger Chan whose daughter is in Washington state Ginger is similar Ginger we're waiting Ginger is also a part of trans allies and next we're going to introduce an attendant of her husband and son come but her oldest son was in a car accident today family emergency told her car and so she's here but she didn't bring her family with her Kimberly Anderson who is also with trans allies and now I would like to introduce and his mom, come on and his mom Christina trans allies let me just ask each of you Adam, we're going to start with you just take just a moment, tell the people your name, where you go to school just a little about you and then we'll start with some specific questions for about almost two years and it's been very rough but also really, really great I have had a lot of support including my mom and my aunt and the audience and I'm just lucky to have them it was great, I mean we're happy we didn't really have a whole lot of problems he's a really good boy Anderson, my pronouns are she, her, hers and I have three children I have two boys and a girl and I will disclose up here tonight that I'm here because one of them is transgender but typically I just say that I have three kids so and my pronouns are she, hers I have two children a boy and a girl I guess they probably don't want to be called boys and girls because they're 19 and my 19 year old daughter is transgender she came out about three years ago in high school here in San Antonio and it's been a journey her journey, not my journey I always have to tell myself that just along with the support so let me ask you a story about this how did your children come out to you and how have you supported them and how have you supported them with the school list so we'll start with Ginger so my daughter was a little creative and not very clear when she came out to me the first time she this was her freshman year in high school and she came to me one day when we were standing in the kitchen and said mom next time I go to a dance I want to wear a dress and anybody who knows my child she's very provocative and she likes to make political statements and she's very she's just very I don't know how to exactly describe it but just into being different she's got strong personality to wear a dress that's fine but just make sure there isn't some kid that really needs to wear a dress so I totally missed the votes I thought she was just trying to support some friends or something but really she was trying to tell me something about her which I totally missed and so it took her almost a year to come out again and say hey mom I'm trans so we had a whole her whole freshman year where she had this thing inside her and tell either of us my husband or myself and so then she did finally come and specifically say hey mom I'm trans and I was like oh okay and I didn't know what to say because I didn't really know anything about it that was right about when Caitlyn Jenner was coming out and so that was my whole exposure to trans gender was Caitlyn Jenner now we know so much and so I was just like okay and was there anything else you wanted to tell me and she was like not anytime and my husband of course was out of town because that's when your kids tell you big things and so I called him and I said hey our child's name came to me and told me this thing and I shared that with him and he was like really? and so that kind of started our journey and it took us obviously we found a therapist because San Antonio's got some great therapists and we just started learning and educating ourselves we went to PSDU went to PFLAG and just started doing different things to learn and luckily we had an amazing guidance counselor at our high school and when we came to the guidance counselor and said hey she wants to come out of school this guidance counselor was amazing and I was just talking to somebody earlier today about how it's really very interesting your experiences from talking to other parents your experiences about coming out of school and we are in the northeast school district and that school district is not known for being supportive but we were just so lucky because we found the right person and so our experience in school was with this guidance counselor advocated for us and she got my child's teachers together and we sat down with them before the school year started and talked about what was going to happen and it really ended up being a very amazing experience and the interesting thing is that Kimberley's daughter went to high school with my daughter and she did not even realize until graduation that my daughter had transitioned and was this going by a different name and any of that she was like oh my gosh and so I feel that's a testament to the school that it wasn't a big deal and that my child was able to transition and graduate and have a really decent high school experience with making it no big deal but it was luck and I'm sure Kimberley's going to share a slightly different story so we're going to segue to Kimberley and Kimberley and to the same questions with perhaps a little bit different perspective transgender identifies on the binary and he identifies as a trans man and a year in fact it's not even been a whole year since August 27th about a year ago August 26th we dropped our first child well the first child that we dropped off at school and it was the closest sibling that my child had at the time and they were so close and I was actually very concerned that seeing my child withdraw a lot during the summer the doctors and I had some very real concerns about his mental health and how he was going to move forward without his sister there and so the night before school started I expressed to him that we neither needed to start taking the prescription that the doctor had given us for depression or that we needed to figure out what was at the source of his depression and start speaking to somebody about it and the next day was the first day of school and he texted me about two minutes after I dropped him off and he said mom I left a note in your car when you read it and I said as soon as I get in I'm going to read it because I was still driving all the time and I read it and then I was just shocked which is silly looking back because in school shopping we were shopping for binders and we shopped in the men's department and so all of the things and all of the clues that were right in front of my face I didn't have the language to process as what those were meaning at that time because I hadn't it hadn't been normalized enough in my circles for me to understand what that meant so looking back I kind of feel silly but I read that note and in that note it was incredible his articulation of what he said mom I am a transgender boy and it is not a mental illness I identify as a boy because that's the way I was born I know that dad might have a hard time with this and I know you still love me because you told me but I still kind of want to go to church because sometimes I feel really comfortable there I hope that you guys still love me and I said a few other things and I learned that he had researched this quite a bit that he had explained what transgender was so when I talked to my husband we were both very much on the same page if this is our kid we love them we're going to do everything we can support and affirm them and figure out the next steps because there is nothing in parenting books about how to go about this so what do I do I have many resources and so we started almost immediately attending BSU and PFLAG and trans allies meetings and my coping skill is to learn everything I can about the subject and to become a subject matter expert so that's what I proceeded to do and I just talked to Lauren recently about we had decided at the time that we were going to allow him to transition to a certain point that we were very sure that he needed to wait a little while which shows you my ignorance of the journey that we were about to embark on as a family but I found out that he already had his teachers at school calling him the Anderson for like six months so I was like so are you out of school or are you not out of school he's like well my teacher is probably Anderson and I don't know whatever that means but just tell everybody I said wait you want me to just tell everybody he's like yeah just tell everybody get it all over with so I don't have to do it ever again I was like well that's not really how this works but I hear what you're saying and we'll start to go forward with this so we met with a really great therapist who was able to kind of help put all of our thoughts together and get us a great letter that I could take to school and have have it kind of laid out what our expectations of the transition would go and how they would go and it was the first that he was going to be coming out because he had won an award where his name would be called his chosen name would be called and so it was very important for me to get the school on board with it that day because I was like all these kids are going to hear his chosen name for the first time so really hope this works out the front desk people were amazing and really worked with me the administration was cautious to say best term very cautious thinking of it already been discussing with them they already had a situation and were very comfortable with calling it Anderson and whichever whether he decided to go by a name in his time or not but we came to the point where right before his school was ending we knew that we were going to get his name and gender marker change this summer which we did get his name and gender marker change this summer so thank you that is great what the process would be for the next year because being his grade level he still has a requirement for PE and I said I want to make sure that my son is able to be in the correct PE class in the locker room and the administrator said well I might not look like what you think it's going to look like I was like I'm sorry you're going to force my son to go to the girls locker room she said no he can use the single use restroom outside of the locker room which he'll have to wait for a coach to open up at the start of every PE class and I was like yeah because that coach is going to be there on time right? that is not going to happen I said and what's my other option she said well or he could change in the nurses office okay he's going to change in the nurses office yes in their single use restroom we're seemingly just closed in the nurses office and then walk all the way to the gym in his PE class yes that's the other option okay so we have him standing outside with all the other kids entering the locker room waiting for a coach to open it up for him to go by himself into one place or we have him being humiliated by walking across the entire school on his PE uniform every day those are great options she said well in speaking with our attorney that's what they wanted me to present to you and I said I will speak with my attorney and I will get back to you on what we will present to you and then I did the hardest thing that I've ever had to do and I asked my son what he wanted because it's his journey not mine and I knew that if I fought this fighting the giant of the school district that we're in it's not going to be a quiet fight and there would be every chance that his name would be leaked and I couldn't and I asked him how he felt about that and he said I don't want that I just want to just be I'm fine with going into the nurses office because I don't want to be around the other boys because they'll care I won't even say a nice word but he was really afraid for his safety so it took a long time for me to process that and I really worked at finding alternative options for him to take P.E. and that's not been an option and so after much thought and discussion I'm respecting his wishes and allowing him to change from the nurses office until he comes to a different place and then I will fight for him as much as he wants to but I think that this isn't this isn't he doesn't want to rock the boat he doesn't want to be noticed he wants to just be like every other kid and I can't give that to him without fighting and making him not like every other kid so but we're just going to have to wait until his voice gets a little bigger and hopefully he lets me know when that happens are you comfortable sharing what school is true? where in the northeast is school district? I don't need anybody to be surprised so when Adam came out to us it was like the end of his freshman year and he said his name and he let us know that that's what he wanted to be called and we said okay and that was fine and when eventually like I got tired of using his den name like around family members and stuff so I did ask him if it was okay but I just started using his name Adam on facebook and he did say yes so I just one day switched it I threw it out there and said oh Adam he wants some awards so we were proud and I was like okay well only a few people like private messaged me and said so it's Adam now and I said yes and that's all I got and then everybody was fine everybody at my job was so excited they were like oh my god you have a son and I was like yes I have three sons thank you so they were pretty cool some of the older ladies I didn't think were going to be like okay with it but I guess because they've known me for so long well this is a Christina thing so time so everybody was really happy for Adam everyone's super supportive of him everybody loves him and when it came to school he did pretty much almost everything on his own he talked to the teachers he talked to his counselor in fact I had a teacher and a counselor call me and apologized for not for not seeing it you know before he went to them and it was okay everybody's been pretty cool haven't had too many problems when Adam did come out I didn't know any information he had done all his research I had nothing so I started to look through things online and I found the Pride Center and did the Pride Center and found trans allies which is super wonderful super loving and wonderful supportive people and I am so happy to have that because I had no idea what to do or where to go and through them we found doctors and just attorneys anything we needed psychiatrists they have all the information we were looking for it just made this so much easier we were able to get Adam to stay with gender market change and when he started testosterone you know it was wonderful we found a wonderful doctor we even celebrated his day with a cake and everything so it's just been we've been really lucky very very fortunate that we have all the support that we have from both sides of our family what school district East Central so Adam let me ask you how have you addressed school and how has it been how has the experience been for you and have you been anywhere lately well first of all answer the last question yes I have been somewhere I went to Sydney Australia to sing in the opera house with an international choir and I actually roomed with other guys and they were okay with me and it's kind of sad to say it but it was the one like that whole week there felt like the first time where I had no fear whatsoever of being me and they just accepted me they didn't think of me as like a like a trans man or like a like or this and that no they just saw me as me and I felt really great and but at the end of that trip I think it was the second to the last day or the last day I put out a story saying it's a shame that this is going to end because yes I have all the support at home but school I have support but there are kids who aren't so supportive like what happened the I think yeah the month before we got out of school this year there's this incident where we're at band rehearsal and this one kid had said like the wrong pronoun to me and I just politely corrected them and said like oh it's okay you know and then they followed up with saying no you're not and then instead of just shutting it down and just being like okay whatever like I always do it ticked me off because I already didn't like this kid because this kid was a stranger to the teachers to other students and so I instead of being like how he usually was and conflictive I decided hey I'm going to try and explain it to him which did not go well because he did not accept the information I gave to him I even went and explained the signs behind it but he said this statement which anchors me to this day he said if we pull our pants down right now will we have the same gentilia no then you're not a man and I remember just being like are you kidding me I tried explaining this to you but and then I told my band director is like next day like hey you shouldn't say and all that but then I was hoping oh maybe that got something through him no like around battle flowers when we were doing practice for um no it wasn't even on practice it was the day of the night break um we were we were going home on the bus and him and his friend kept repeatedly using the wrong name the wrong pronouns on purpose to annoy me and I wouldn't respond to them or anything not even look at them but then sometimes they would talk behind my back and be like oh yeah you know like yeah um she and I was just like are you kidding me so then I told the band director again and I thought um okay so I told the band director the band director told me to write a statement and everything and that um there's something would happen so I gave the statement to the band director the band director looked over with the other one and then they sent it to the administration nothing happened the kids went unpunished um they didn't even get a talk from the band directors that infuriated me it made me so upset that nothing was done about it um and part of me just thinks it's because it's the end of the year and they don't want to deal with it or they don't know how to or many things but either way the fact of the matter is they didn't do anything about it and that's what frustrated me but so far that's the only bad experience I've had every other experience in school like being trans has been great my choir director she was um supportive she didn't let me wear like a tux I'd actually be in the men's choir and sing um tenor with all the other guys and I went to UIL singing um tenor and I actually um because a lot of the kids failed I was the only tenor one that could sing like the really high note so I got to sing that high note and um because my voice is so loud you can actually hear echo throughout the um forming out of center and that felt great being on stage with other guys and singing with them and not like it just felt so great and amazing and then not only a choir I welcome but um tenor my tenor director actually let me change the other guys cause the other guys were pretty cool out there were like oh whatever it's fine and he was just like yeah you can go on then and I'm like really he's like yeah it's fine they're cool and I'm like okay and I had no fear whatsoever cause I knew most of those kids and I felt really comfortable and it was it was just awesome and then in my other class I said like oh it's Adam because my name had not been legally changed yet and the teachers had been to where they called me by my name and the right pronouns and actually um my um yeah algebra 2 teacher she um one time she had asked me is the wrong pronoun she was like oh I'm so sorry my mistake I meant key and like it was just nice seeing like my teacher actually correct themselves and like try and make an effort cause with students I haven't really gotten that except for maybe like my friends and sounds like Northside might have some competition here in town my key central is really done a good job so thank you very much and I have one last quick question for the moms what are your hopes for schools especially in the coming year will start with you Christina um for me I just hope that schools get educated more than anything because it's super frustrating having to go in as a parent and educate everybody I I realize that this is pretty much new for most schools but I feel like even when I've had a few roadblocks and I do present them with information and they just don't they don't seem to want to change all the time so I would like to see more change, more acceptance and just more education in the schools I want my son to go to the bathroom and to not have to do things I want schools to remember that they're there to support kids and not to instill their personal biases on kids and actually remember that they're there for the kids I also want teachers to use their pronouns so I try to do this wherever I go but my biggest thing is that if I can leave you with one thing tonight if you could in your signature line of your email change your pronouns and add your signature add your pronouns to your signature lines so right under your hang you would put pronouns, dash your pronouns you identify with and it's really easy to do and it's really important for everyone to do it, especially as cisgender people because we're the people who are going to make it normal for everybody to use their pronouns so please do that for me tonight so Emmett? Where is Emmett? You have your pronouns in the signature on your email right there You? Yes I don't actually but I was emailing Are you going to consider it? So you've already made a difference in someone's life so I would like to ask the funds from the SDU Emmett, Brad, Alice if you'll all come up here please do mind Alice So I'm going to move into a question and answer time and make this a conversation because what we're here for is to change people's lives after ranking I'm sorry, I've got to include you No, no Her name is Laura Rankin She's such a habit for me to call her Dr. Rankin She told me earlier she doesn't mind me calling Laura So So Are there questions? Do people have conversations or questions? Generally not performing non-binary children How can I? So, as individual just said as a non-custodial parent As a custodial parent of gender non-conforming non-binary transgender children those are all terms we use to describe a family a family of identities of people whose gender is somehow different than the very binary gender through identity with a person Other parents so that they can be more supported in their journey A lot of it is on your relationship obviously with that other parent if you are successful face to face sit down and you might ask your child would you like to be the president would you like to explain this to your mom or dad with me or would you like to write a letter so kids feel more comfortable that way or sending an email or something but that should maybe be the first conversation because just because your child came out to you they might not be ready to come out to their dad or their mom or their grandmother or something like that so that's a conversation you should have first and I'm always a big proponent of face to face is always best because I feel telephone things can get misconstrued but definitely check with your child first before you make any sense so I want to introduce you to someone else really quickly his name is Adam Sosena and Adam is Adam Adam is an LPC and he sees a large number of the trans kids here especially young ones here in the city and right before we started this evening he was talking to me about that specifically so I've invited him up here to take a quick swing at that if you don't mind I was talking to Lauren earlier about some of the most challenging work for me as a therapist is working with families where parents are divorced because if we have a child's parent who is affirming especially for the divorce decree indicates that there's decisions that are being made by both parents so it's not just one parent that can make decisions that's really difficult and I think oftentimes a therapeutic setting is going to be helpful in those situations because it can allow for the therapist to hold space for both parents to talk about another affirming parent to find out what those fears are what are those challenges and allow for the processing of feelings of grief feelings of fear and then providing resources to that parent and hopefully they're also wanting to engage in counseling services as well always taking the lead of the child and talking to them about what this could look like so I think these are some important pieces and I think a therapeutic environment could be essential in helping parents learn more about their child's experience and how they can be supportive and affirming of their experience Do we need an amendment to have a comment? I do Me and Adam were divorced and when Adam came out I asked him do you want to tell your dad or do you want me to do it I wasn't sure how he was going to go he was okay he asked me why Adam didn't tell him and I told him he wasn't ready but I feel like he's been okay he's maybe not as supportive as everybody else but he does love his son and he is there for them him and I feel like well at least for us the phone call was the way to go to the face to face there might have been confrontation so I felt like it was easier he was in his own home he could sit down and I approached it I just told him I have something to tell you it's about our son Adam and he said Adam and I said Adam's dead name and he said oh okay and when I explained everything he was okay the relationship you have with your ex or whatever they might be for us we're okay we're not best friends but we're okay so that's what worked for us one thing I would like to add is if you have a divorce decree to make sure you know what's in that divorce decree you don't want to put yourself in any kind of legal risk with that other person if you don't have a good relationship that's a very big risk because you don't know how you're going to react or what they might try to do so just make sure you know what's in that document because that is a legal binding document for you the other things that I wanted to mention was that so sometimes kiddos are comfortable with not coming out to an affirming parent and often times when somebody is looking to medically transition or legally transition in terms of official documentation with their name and gender marker there are going to be challenges in my work with youth and without a license so sometimes kiddos won't reveal their certain gender identity to their affirming parent until a situation occurs where maybe they're wanting to pursue gender affirming normal therapy or legal name or gender marker change experience having my parents divorced and also being a couple hundred miles away from one of them well like I said my dad first time about that I was questioning my sexuality by on accident you know he wasn't meant to know I wanted to keep this to myself because it also so depends on the child the child's feelings they may be not ready to come out to a parent even if they know their parent supported they're willing to accept no matter what so it really also all depends on you know the child's own feelings if they're ready to come out if they're ready to make steps and if not just one parent who is affirming you know even if both parents are affirming the child may be uncomfortable like for me I was uncomfortable telling my dad that I was even questioning because I actually didn't know what his opinion on what his stance was if he was going to be supported or if he was and my dad asked me when he first found out do you feel like a boy in the white body or do you feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body which to me was sort of the first you know idea that you know it is a thing being trans is a real thing had so you know with my dad's help I actually should tell my mother who I really didn't want to tell at the time but kind of felt I had you know so it all depends on the child's feelings of security and comfort knowing that other people know they're at least even considering that they may not be a sister Other questions? Anyone else? Questions, comments? Any way back Sorry She said she wants to she wants to know how we can help reassure the kids that they are accepted and affirmed I think that goes to what we need to do is change our language all of us need to change our language and that speaks to right into the pronouns that I was talking about when I'm using my pronouns in everyday language and using neutral language as much as possible I'm still learning how to really make that a part of my language as being neutral so that all people that identify anywhere feel comfortable around me and the more we change that language and the less we use binary references the more they're going to understand and I think it's also really important that we read books to them from when they're little about inclusiveness and diversity in all things not just gender sexuality and ethnicity and all of that because we all make up this world and in doing the inclusivity of all of the diversity that there is about the human experience I think it's really important that we incorporate that into our language in our homes and in doing that also asking to incorporate it into our workplaces if we have a say in that are neutral to gender and that support and affirm differences in gender identity and then for our part on the school side we encourage everybody that's in the school not just teachers, but nurses secretaries, principals college medical students or their families to get those like safe zone stickers to get the ally signs to hang outside their door you know it doesn't have to say LGBT allies they're not comfortable with that but to have the rainbow triangle somewhere you know to let them know that hey I'm somebody you can talk to but also kind of to piggyback off of what you said earlier I think it's just really important that cisgender people kind of get on board with this we might not have children that are trans or nieces or nephews, grandkids but I mean even start in our own homes you know my daughter is right there she just turned three and she is going into the stage with like well boys do this and he can't be in here and it's like no people can be wherever they people are people they can go wherever they want to I want to marry a girl when I grow up that's great I hope she treats you right you know and it shouldn't be that you know oh well I'm going to do my son wants to do ballet and my father said well no you don't want to do that, that's girl stuff and I'm like yeah we don't say that in our house you know and so starting those kind of conversations in the grocery store at your home it spreads you know the whole ripples and a pond kind of thing actually if you were a teacher if you can unpack gender out of your room it's little stuff like the bathroom passes a lot of teachers have lights like push button lights and we like we push the girl light to your girl he gets up by boys light up your girl light up you're getting kids notice it and the stage space speakers you're just going to put them out in your classroom and they take pride in this thing and they're gonna burn and the kids know what you're doing they know if there's any in your classroom that says trans kids, matter, pride whatever, rainbow, black anything, it's this big I have a can on my work ladder that has my thrown out on it and kids notice it it's a little tiny thing and they see it and they know you're there and it's minimal on your part to just unpack that language and stop gender bias stuff in your room thank you thank you very much and we Transgender Education Network of Texas has a training called TransSafe and so I'm very proud to say that one of the signs Dr. Rinkin has in her office is a TransSafe sign that says that she is an ally to train and train to be a transgender ally by the transgender education Network of Texas, but I want to tell all the school districts in here that we would love to do that a principal recently in the school that we train stopped me halfway through and said so I'm changing today I'm changing all of our our name tags I'm adding pronouns and we're going to have conversations at every staff meeting about gendered activities in the classrooms so schools can do this schools can do it this week we are traveling to the valley and we will be training one of the larger school districts in the valley we'll be training 150 teachers, administrators and staff from a large school district so it can be done it's just because people choose 19 there's only one person on our panel I think it can really address that from a sexuality perspective and live through it and that sort of thing and I'm going to hug him but I've already hugged him twice today but but he lives pretty out in pride so Brad do you mind addressing that sexuality question we talked about you're not having a discussion downstairs your daughter is 13 right now right I think that it is a situation where as a parent probably a child who may be LG or B in some instances kids are trying to figure it out and it just takes time I think to really step into a comfortable and if you want to be super out about it then you'll be super out about it some folks Lauren says that I'm super out I wasn't always super out when I was 13 I definitely wasn't super out I knew that I had I knew that I was not reacting to girls in the same way as my brother and other people other friends of mine were reacting but it took me until I was literally in college I had to figure out what it is that feels different about me and then just be honest about it to myself and for me it's a different situation because I didn't come out to my parents I got outed to my parents so for me it was a much different situation than having affirming parents who were saying I love you for who you are nothing you say is going to change that I literally was told that I was going through a phase out of it haven't yet so yeah I think it has been for teenage kids especially be speaking to my own experience at least we're just trying to figure it out and at some point we can see a comfortable on our own to actually step up and say this is how this is going to end but what I mean like in school she told me earlier while we were sitting here the first before anybody else what was her reaction she wants me to be there but I'm kind of worried about them so I've noticed that when I talk to my school my son's school about the more confident I was about supporting him the better this reception is from anyone else in the community at the school or anything else I'm just going to wait for mama bear so I think that when you talk to the school about it if you go in a confident supportive kind and looking at it from an educational standpoint if they have any questions that you come to them and say I want to be your ally and to support and keep my daughter safe and we wanted to let you know that this is going on so that you can be aware of the safety issue that's possible and then give the school the opportunity to work with you on that I think it always starts from a good place when you start it off well like that instead of coming back at it in a negative way but I'm just speaking as a parent who's worked with the school on that so that's the extent of my knowledge on that so speaking as a bi person I'm openly fine and I'm not going to be too cute work so first of all congratulations it is so hard to come out as being bi oh and my name is Andrea I use your pronouns I did field and policy for tent but it's really difficult and so I just want to take a moment to say I'm so proud of you as another bi person rock on second of all with your child to go talk about it is great I would say to your daughter write a letter it's so much easier to convey what you're thinking what you're feeling in a letter and just say it out loud no one can take your voice away but you're also at a great age where you can start a GSA there are other people I am sure of it that are gay, lesbian and bi that are feeling the same exact way that you are okay, like you're not in your school and your school district in this city you are not alone do you mind asking me what school district you're in? okay yeah so I think I am someone who wants to do something have the conversation and if it's too much maybe it's just your mom and that's okay but then go and say I really, if you're up to it start a GSA because you're going to be that you're going to create your own group you're going to create your own community and that is so important but also find a community here I can give you other teachers who start GSA's, I'm from Edgewood Edgewood is a very complicated school district and they start GSA's and when I went there I thought that would never happen so find that opportunity find maybe a teacher who you feel comfortable with and having that conversation and maybe they will be the sponsor to that school program the goal is to find an ally it is always to find an ally but protect yourself it is hard to be bi let me tell you but don't let anybody say that you need to choose something or you need to pick or make a decision already and it is not a phase this is your life and that's okay and I support you 100% I'm right behind you yeah we have gone over time already we're about 15 or 20 minutes over so I want to thank all of you for coming and if you have pressing questions I can't speak for everyone but my experience has been that we all stay around for at least a few minutes if you would speak to any of us one-on-one we'll answer any questions you have thank you very much