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5 CLARK A. POMERLEAU College Transitions Recommended Policies for Trans Students and Employees Overview During the last two decades, U.S. media have run exposés on anti-LGBT harassment ’s devastating consequences, including the murders of Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard and the spate of youths who were bullied to the point of killing themselves in 2010.1 After twenty years, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has supported calls to reduce bullying in schools. The office asserted that harassment based on perceived gender or sexual orientation violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, because such harassment includes sex-stereotyping that constitutes sex discrimination.2 Framing LGBT harassment as discriminatory sex-stereotyping opens the way for serious enforcement, but schools need a clear understanding of what actions and policies are discriminatory. This chapter focuses on constructing best practices to prevent sex discrimination against university students and personnel who are trans and/or gender diverse.3 A small but growing literature addresses how American universities can change policies to support full inclusion. University personnel benefit from the fact that most of this literature is accessible online and responsive to changing conditions. This essay assesses what trans activists and legal advisers consider the best practices in place for (1) safety, (2) access to information and resources, (3) people’s ability to control knowledge about their own trans status, (4) traditionally single-sex accommodations, and (5) programming. It uses the experiences of four white, trans students as an illustrative and instructive lens in making this assessment. Safety Students Arrive from a Context of Prevalent Bias and Harassment Universities reflect the diversity of values within our society and are affected by broader societal trends. The prevalence of anti-trans bigotry and harassment 82 Clark A. Pomerleau due to gender expression in lower education raises concerns about how that affects college students and employees and how university personnel can differentiate the college level from rampant gender bias in lower education. The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has documented discrimination and violence that students face based on gender expression and sexual orientation since 1999. In its 2009 survey, 39.9 percent of the 7,261 lesbian, gay, bi, and trans sixth through twelfth graders surveyed “felt unsafe because of how they expressed their gender.” Their concern was part of a larger problem of policing gender expression, in which 62.2 percent had heard negative remarks at school that someone was not acting “masculine enough” or “feminine enough” often or frequently, and 59 percent had “heard teachers or other staff make negative comments about a student’s gender expression at school.”4 Students can be harassed for their gender expressions regardless of their sexual orientations or gender identities, but rates of harassment have been highest for students who identify as trans, genderqueer, or androgynous. In the 2009 GLSEN survey, 63.7 percent of all the students “had been verbally harassed because of their gender expression” in the past year, “and 25.6 percent reported that it happened often or frequently.” The overall rate of physical harassment due to gender expression was 27.2 percent, and “12.5 percent were assaulted at school because of how they expressed their gender.”5 The 2007 GLSEN survey reported that more trans students reported “sometimes,” “often,” or “frequently” experiencing verbal harassment (89.8 percent of them), physical harassment (56 percent), and physical assault (37.9 percent) than all other students, including racial and religious minorities.6 As a result, 76.3 percent of trans students and 52.9 percent of those who chose “Other Gender” felt unsafe because of their gender expressions.7 These rates have remained steady over the course of the 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009 GLSEN surveys.8 Accounts from students who shared their experiences for this chapter diverged sharply based on whether they identified early as LGBT and were labeled as such by school staff. Julia9 was the only one who had not identified with a non-normative gender until partway through college and had no memory of unsafe conditions for herself or others in high school. Sam, who had “expressed the gender non-conformity . . . by combining masculine and feminine fashion statements” at an arts high school had the second-least experience with harassment. The “very liberal arts” high school had “lots of queerness going on and diversity that had to be accepted in order to thrive in your art.” Staff at Sam’s high school...

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