As transgender students try to find their way, schools look to the law, elsewhere for guidance

Malerie Brewster said she began living as a transgender girl in her sophomore year at East Islip High School in 2016. She didn't tell her family, but a teacher's assistant called and told her mother, she said.

"I do think it was an overstep. She should have spoken with me first," said Brewster, 21, of Islip Terrace. Moreover, it made her think twice about trusting the school. "I thought, 'This place isn't as safe as I thought it was.' "

Transgender students and issues — including the issue of parental notification — have taken on a high profile across the United States  and on Long Island. National discourse has landed them in the center of the culture wars, with schools often on the front lines on issues regarding transgender use of bathrooms and locker rooms, and participation in sports.

What has been particularly thorny is the question of whether schools have a responsibility to notify parents if their child starts identifying as transgender. 

Barbara Abboud, who has two daughters, ages 10 and 13, attending schools in Farmingdale, said it is imperative that parents are informed if their child is going through such a major change in their lives.

"You cannot give my child an aspirin without my consent," said Abboud. "Why is that any different?" 

Abboud is chairwoman of the Nassau County chapter of the Moms for Liberty, a group, she said, that advocates for more parental rights in education. 

"We need to make sure that parents understand what's happening in these schools, what conversations are taking place — and that they have a say about what makes them most comfortable for their child," Abboud said.

But David Kilmnick, president of the LGBT Network on Long Island, said informing parents can place a student at greater risk.

"If a parent is transphobic, the kid could end up on the street or be physically or mentally abused," Kilmnick said. "Why would schools want blood on their hands?"

Long Island LGBTQ advocates say transgender students are seeing more acceptance at school but still face bullying and feel threatened by attempts to restrict their choice of bathrooms, limit sports involvement and remove books about them.

Meanwhile, local educators say state and federal policies provide some guidance on the issues. But they are sometimes left on their own to decide important matters such as whether to notify parents if a student comes out as transgender in school but not at home.

LGBTQ advocates say New York remains among the most welcoming states in the country for transgender people. But they note that Long Island, with 124 separate public school systems, has a mixed bag of districts where people accommodate those students versus those who push back.

"There's been progress in some areas," said Maria Demauro, LGBTQ services manager for the Island-based PFY (formerly Pride for Youth). "I see more all-gender bathrooms. But we're also seeing a lot of bullying, a lot of discrimination and a lot of rejection by families."

Across the country, some 300,000 people ages 13 to 17 — or about 1.4% — identify as transgender, according to a 2022 study by the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law.

School can be among the greatest stressors for transgender children. More than 4 in 10 trans adults said school made them feel unsafe, according to a Washington Post-KFF national poll released Wednesday. Respondents reported feeling hated and alone in school, being shoved and shouted at, and even contemplating or attempting suicide.
On Long Island, controversy over transgender issues has erupted in several districts in recent months.

In the Comsewogue system, the parents of a student filed a lawsuit against the district in January accusing a teacher of encouraging their child, a fifth-grader who is female, to use male pronouns and a male name without the parents' knowledge.

The lawsuit, in which the parents were anonymous, spurred heated debate at a school board meeting March 6, during which Superintendent Jennifer Quinn said the district "will vigorously defend itself."

Elsewhere, a 14-year-old from Medford was charged in December with threatening LGBTQ students at a high school in Holtsville. Suffolk police said the girl sent threatening text messages to kill any LGBTQ person at the school.

About 80 members of the Elwood school community have signed an online petition to remove the books "Flamer" and "George" from the middle school and high school libraries. "Flamer" is a graphic novel about the struggles of a boy coming to terms with his sexual identity. "George" is a book about a young transgender student.

Parents debated the two books at a March 16 school board meeting, some saying they contain inappropriate sexual content, while others said the books should remain on the shelves because they show what LGBTQ students go through.

Gray areas in the law

Kathryn Behr, principal of Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, said she looks to the state's policies and guidance on transgender issues. The school has some transgender students, and they are able to use the locker room and restroom of their choice, as well as a nongender bathroom in the school, she said.

"We want to make sure school is a safe place for students," Behr said.

Federal and state guidelines have some gray areas regarding transgender school issues, and legal interpretations are being hashed out in courts, legislatures and schools across the country.

For example, the U.S. Department of Education issued an "interpretation" in 2021 saying that Title IX — the federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 that protects against discrimination in education — extends to discrimination in schools on the basis of gender identity.

But a federal appeals court ruled in December that a Florida district did not violate the rights of a transgender male student — a biological female who identifies as a male — by not allowing the student to use the boys bathroom. The court ruled that the school board’s policy of separating school restrooms based on biological sex does not violate civil rights law or the Constitution.

Here in New York, state law provides some protections for transgender students, said Lauren Schnitzer, an attorney with Lamb & Barnosky in Melville, whose practice includes education law. 

Specifically, Education Law Section 409-m says school districts must “develop policies and procedures requiring that all single-occupancy bathroom facilities are designated as gender neutral for use by no more than one occupant at a time or for family or assisted use."

The state Department of Education issued "guidance" on transgender issues in 2015. It states, "Prohibiting a student from accessing the restrooms that match [their] gender identity is prohibited sex discrimination under Title IX." Updated guidance on transgender school issues is expected this spring, officials said.

New York's Dignity for All Students Act, a law that took effect in 2012, broadly prohibits discrimination and harassment of students in school.

"DASA prohibits harassment, bullying or discrimination against a student based on the student’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity or gender expression," Schnitzer said.

State policy on transgender athletics is less clear-cut. The New York State Public High School Athletic Association, which is the state's governing body for interscholastic athletics, "is committed to providing all students with the opportunity to participate in NYSPHSAA activities in a manner consistent with their gender identity and the New York State Commissioner of Education’s Regulations," according to its website. 

But those guidelines are only recommendations, not binding policy, said Robert Zayas, the group's executive director. 

Zayas said he receives a handful of transgender sports questions a month, ranging from whether a transgender student can use a certain locker room to whether they can play on a team. 

The Biden administration weighed in on the transgender athletics issue on April 6. The administration proposed a rule change that would prevent schools from enacting broad bans on transgender students participating on sports teams that match their gender identity. But the new rule, which must go through an approval process, also would recognize that in some instances, specifically in competitive high school and college sports, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender student participation.

Should schools notify parents?

New York has no specific law on whether a school should notify parents if a student identifies as transgender, Kilmnick said. The question has become a flashpoint across the country.

The state Education Department's guidance acknowledges that some students do not want their parents to know.

"These situations must be addressed on a case-by-case basis and will require schools to balance the goal of supporting the student with the requirement that parents be kept informed about their children," the guidance states. "School personnel should speak with the student first before discussing a student’s gender nonconformity or transgender status with the student’s parent or guardian."

Alabama, Virginia and Florida have passed laws or issued guidance prohibiting schools from withholding information about a student's gender identity from parents.

Dominick Palma, superintendent of Merrick schools and president of the Nassau County Council of School Superintendents, said if a student's parents don't know they are transgender, he would work with the student to speak to their parents. If the student objects to telling their parents, he would look at their age and other factors.

"If the student is 18, we would help the student talk to their parents. But I don't know that we would have to inform the parents," Palma said. "If the student were 10, we would more than likely talk to the parents."

Port Washington Superintendent Michael Hynes said about 10 of the district's 5,300 students are transgender. He said he has not had an instance in which a student asked school officials not to inform their parents. If faced with that, Hynes said, "We would do everything we can to convince that student that it is in their best interest" to let their parents know.

School officials, Hynes added, are concerned about potential bullying and other ways in which a transgender student could face harm.

"There are [state education] regulations that we can lean on saying that if we have information that could hurt the health and safety of a child, the parent has the right to know if the school does," Hynes said. 

Consequently, even if a student insisted on not informing their parents, Hynes said he eventually would notify them. 

"I would, yeah, I would," Hynes said, adding, "Every time we work with students, this has not been an issue."

Transgender issues in classrooms

Milo Rose, a 20-year-old transgender man in Smithtown, said his high school years were challenging.

"I just wanted to keep my head down and just get out," Rose said. "In high school, I was not comfortable expressing anything to anyone."

Brewster, the former East Islip High School student, said that after the teacher's assistant informed her parents, she complained to a guidance counselor, but "that didn't go far."

Phoebe Vaughan is a sophomore at Island Trees High School in Levittown and president of the school's gay-straight alliance. Vaughan, who is not transgender, said the school has been accepting of its transgender students, having established a gender-neutral bathroom. 

Nonetheless, the school told the group last fall, without explanation, to stop using its Instagram account, said Vaughan, 15. The school principal did not respond to Newsday inquiries about the Instagram issue.

Transgender issues come up in some classes, Vaughan said.

"In Regents history, they talk about it in passing," she said. "It gets brought up not as a focus, but that [some event in history] also affected this group."

Many Island school officials feel unprepared to deal with transgender student issues, whether it's bullying or unsupportive parents, Demauro said.

"A lot of schools have a lot of parents and children who don't feel supported by the schools," she said. "They've reported some bullying, and sometimes the school won't do enough."

The LGBT Network works with more than 100 Island districts, presenting workshops for staff and faculty, setting up after-school clubs and speaking to students, Kilmnick said. 

In the Port Washington district, the LGBT Network speaks to students in ninth grade health class, and PFY speaks to students in health classes taken as a junior or senior, Hynes said.

Despite the progress, Kilmnick said, the wave of anti-LGBT legislation and rhetoric has made these days "scary" for transgender people.

"In 1993," he said, pointing to the year he started the network, "when someone said or did things anti-LGBT, it was out of ignorance. Now it's intentional."

With Shari Einhorn

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.comScraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.