Subtitle: a 15-minute primer for educators.
Vocabulary
cisgender & transgender: Sociologists Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook define cisgender as a label for “individuals who have a match between the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity”[1]. Transgender people experience a mismatch between their gender identity or gender expression and their assigned sex [2].
gender nonconforming: “refers to people who do not follow other people’s ideas or stereotypes about how they should look or act based on the female or male sex they were assigned at birth” [3]. I am a gender nonconforming woman.
genderfluid, & genderqueer: This is the gender identity for people with a non-binary experience [4]. Miley Cyrus identifies as gender fluid, for example.
FTM & MTF: Abbreviations used by some trans people, meaning “female to male” and “male to female”.
Areas That Require Thought
- Gender segregated spaces such as rest rooms and locker rooms, but also including graduation, homeroom, and health education.
- Policy and records includes all the legal areas related to a student’s school life. This includes the name on official transcripts. Check out the GLSEN webinar below to learn several areas NOT in official policy, including yearbooks and class rosters.
source: GLSEN’s webinar on Supporting Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender
[3] http://srlp.org/resources/fact-sheet-transgender-gender-nonconforming-youth-school/
Megan Hayes-Golding 