Our Child Is a Girl
The ACLU of Illinois represents the family of a female student denied access to the locker room at her high school because she is transgender. Recently the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights found that the school was violating the girl's federally protected rights. The family has not spoken publicly about this case, seeking to protect their family's privacy. The mother of the student, however, shared this statement with the ACLU of Illinois. We are pleased to share it with you.
My husband and I laughed recently when our daughter said her friends say, "You're the most famous anonymous person." Laughter has been rare these days.
That's because our daughter is "Student A" at the center of the recent controversy over whether a girl who is transgender should be permitted to use the girls' locker room.The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights says yes. Our school district -- Township District 211 -- insists that students "of the opposite sex" should not be permitted in the girls' locker room.
For the record, we agree with District Superintendent Daniel Cates about not permitting students of the opposite sex in the locker room. But the inconvenient fact for Mr. Cates and his supporters is that our daughter is not "of the opposite sex."
She is a girl.
The district wrongly assumes what many who are not educated about the issue assume: That what makes a girl a girl and a boy a boy is simple anatomy. We believed this, until our daughter came along. Despite early signs -- from as young as 4, when she declared herself a girl, to the fact that she had mostly girlfriends growing up, played with dolls, begged to wear girls' clothes, insisted on wearing a Hannah Montana wig while she danced around the living room and was heavily distraught over the male characteristics of her body -- we were still shocked and ill-prepared when, at the end of 7th grade, our daughter again told us that she was a girl and had to live openly as one.
This is a difficult concept to grasp. However, just because something is difficult to understand, does not mean we should mock it or deny its existence. When we were struggling to understand, we sought out medical professionals and support groups. Through this education process, we learned that gender extends beyond the sex a person is assigned at birth. We learned that scientific evidence has determined that gender is also determined by the brain's anatomy, which is why the sexual Our Child Is a Girl | An Anonymous Mom: