California Allows Schoolkids to Decide Gender Identity

sage:  Yay!  One more step toward equality for all.

By James Nash, Bloomberg – August 12, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/lazg67q

Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill making California the first with a law that lets schoolchildren decide whether to use boys’ or girls’ bathrooms and which sort of athletic teams to join, based on their gender identity, not their biological sex.

Beginning Jan. 1, California’s nondiscrimination laws will apply to its 6.2 million public-school children, the nation’s largest enrollment. There are no reliable estimates of the number of students who consider themselves to be transgender, said Carlos Alcala, spokesman for the bill’s author, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat.

Transgender children who are those born as one sex yet behave and maintain an appearance consistent with the other sex. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington and Colorado have adopted policies to protect transgender pupils without passing laws, according to Equality California, the state’s largest gay-rights group.

“Although current California law already protects students from discrimination in education based on sex and gender identity, many school districts do not understand and are not presently in compliance with their obligations to treat transgender students the same” as any other, Ammiano said in a legislative analysis of the measure. “Some school districts are excluding transgender students from sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities.”

Sharing Bathrooms

The bill doesn’t have any provisions to accommodate students who may be uncomfortable sharing bathrooms or athletic facilities with transgender peers. Schools will be able to make such accommodations in individual cases, Alcala said in a telephone interview.

The California Catholic Conference, which advocates for the church and its 11 million members in the state on matters of public policy, called the bill “a politically correct, one-size-fits-all” plan on its website.

Other opponents include Concerned Women for America and the Traditional Values Coalition, according to the legislative analysis.

The bill’s mandates apply to all schools that receive state funds or with students who receive state aid. In 2011, Brown signed a measure making California the first state to require schools to highlight the history and achievements of lesbians and homosexuals in civic lessons.

Ammiano’s transgender-student legislation was backed by the state American Civil Liberties Union branch, parent-teacher groups and school districts in Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to the legislative analysis.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest with more than 670,000 students, implemented a similar policy in 2005, according to Equality California.

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