Pictured above: transgender seniors, from top left to bottom right: Samantha Espino, Felix Rafael, Edd Osorio, Allie Patel, and Finn
A recent survey suggests that James Logan’s transgender students fare worse in almost every way than their cisgender or non-trans, counterparts.
The survey, taken by 131 cisgender students, 11 transgender students, and 4 teachers, aimed at comparing the experiences of trans and cis students, collected responses during the week leading up to Spring Break. Trans students reported feeling more anxious at school, more negatively about their bodies, spending more time severely depressed, and being over twice as isolated as other students.
36.43% of cisgender students reported often being isolated from others. This already concerning figure more than doubled to 81.81% among transgender students.
In addition, five out of 11 transgender students say they have felt physically unsafe at James Logan due to their gender or appearance, while three out of 11 say they have felt physically unsafe at home as well.
Four out of 11 have been denied entry to a school facility, such as a restroom or locker room, because of their gender or appearance, despite the fact that district policy specifically permits transgender students to use the restroom or locker room of their choice.
New Haven Board Policy 5124, entitled ‘Transgender Students,’ was adopted on February 15 of last year and remains active today. The document grants a number of rights to students and outlines the obligations of staff in respecting them.
Included are the rights for students to use the restroom and locker room corresponding with their gender, to compete in athletics on the team in accordance with their gender, and to be addressed by their requested name and pronoun.
While some of these rights are listed on the district’s nondiscrimination and harassment page alongside relevant California educational laws, others granted by the policy are left unmentioned. Policy 5124 is not mentioned at all on the page.
Throughout the district’s website, the policy is apparently mentioned and linked in exactly one place—at the bottom of a 2022 announcement by the Superintendent, below four paragraphs concerning changes to the district website format and dangerous TikTok trends.
Without proper visibility, many are left unaware that the policy exists at all, raising problems for implementation. One responding teacher was completely unaware of the policy prior to taking the survey.
When asked if they knew of their rights as a transgender student in New Haven, only three out of 11 students said they did.
In response, trans senior Allie Patel wants to see the rights of transgender students more widely publicized by the district.
“At least [by] releasing a statement or putting up their policy publicly so it’s easier to find,” Patel said. “Even though they don’t care, they can say something about it or make some of the information a little more public. These are really easy things to do.”
Teacher Mani Allen echoes a similar sentiment.
“When we talk about the student handbook, there needs to be something in there when we do Operation Right Start,” Allen said. “We need to spend one period talking about [students’] rights and make sure we are emphasizing and pushing for them. It’s already there. It’s not reinventing the wheel; it’s just sharing it with everybody else.”
While three out of four teachers said they were already aware of the district’s transgender students policy prior to taking the survey, not one said they felt teachers and staff were adequately trained to accommodate trans students.
“We’re not trained at all,” Allen said. “When I got my first social studies, it kinda came, but it wasn’t solid. It was kind of in the clouds.”
When asked to rate James Logan’s support of its trans students from one to 10, teachers put the school at 5.50 on average. However, trans students themselves put the school at 5.81, slightly surpassing expectations.
Though five in 11 responding students said most or all of their teachers did not know how to support them, seven also said that they have felt supported by one or more of their teachers.
“They can improve, but they’re doing their best right now,” Patel said. “They’re doing a really good job trying, and I think it seems unfair to point out a bunch of things they could do better.
“What I would really like to see is actual action on some of the things that have happened recently. Just a while ago, there was this person who was harassing me and my friends, and nothing really ever happens about that,” Patel said.
Patel’s frustration with the school’s apparent inaction is shared by other respondents. Six in 11 transgender students say they don’t feel heard or represented by James Logan—and two say they are being or have been bullied at the school.
“I wish they could actually take action and discipline people who do stuff like this,” Patel said. “[We need to show that] crime and harassment will not be tolerated. There are so many instances of harassment at this school nobody talks about.”
Patel shifts her focus to Logan’s Campus Safety Technicians (CSTs) in particular, who she says often neglect their moral responsibility to intervene – a responsibility that Policy 5124 defines as the “affirmative obligation” of all personnel “to combat discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived gender.”
“I’ve walked down the hallways, and people will make comments, laugh, do something, and it’ll be within hearing of a CST—but they don’t do anything, but if the bell rings and you’re still not in class, they’re gonna yell at you. The priorities need a lot of rearranging,” Patel said.
However, Patel also places responsibility on district leaders to make the needed changes to staff priorities, teacher training, and policy promotion and implementation.
“It’s not entirely [the CSTs’] fault because policy is out of their hands,” Patel said. “The only ones right now who can change things are the people on the higher levels in the district. They’re the only ones who can do anything major about it.”
While district officials such as the School Board Trustees and Superintendent have the highest authority to act, they must work within their own limits as well.
“I think one of the biggest obstacles are parents,” Allen said. “A lot of parents don’t understand – who don’t want to understand. It ties our hands. Even though I’m like, ‘Let’s do it,’ we have to be careful. It’s their tax money that keeps us going.”
Though caution is needed, prolonged admin and district inaction proves to have damaging consequences on trust and communication between schools and students.
“If more hate graffiti and stuff like that happens, or more harassment happens to me, then I would definitely not feel safe with just Logan taking care of it. They wouldn’t take care of it,” Patel said.
A shortage of authoritative action leaves James Logan in a precarious position, felt by students’ rising anxiety and uncertainty.
“Right now, I’m okay, but it could change very quickly. I feel any day it could be more graffiti and hate stuff, more shooting threats, and death lists. It could go downhill very quickly,” Patel said.
If one thing is certain, it’s that effective action must be taken with the support of all personnel, from CSTs and teachers to admin and district leaders. Without cooperation along the entire chain of command, no change could be passed by the district nor implemented at the level of the school offices, classrooms, and hallways.
“If we come together as a community of teachers, district, and admin,” Allen said, “we can push back because we’re here with you all. Everybody matters.”
