http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2015/08/10/Brashe...

By Elizabeth Miles / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Devin Browne doesn’t believe in halfway.

“Even if it’s just one kid, you have to have a policy to make sure that kid’s rights are respected and that kid is safe in school,” said Mr. Browne, a teacher at Pittsburgh Brashear High School and an adviser for the school’s Gay Straight Alliance.

Beth Steck’s daughter Avery, 15, has been that one student. A transgender girl going into her sophomore year at Brashear, she has experienced bullying since elementary school, made worse by teachers who didn’t know how to treat her.

“She said God gave her the wrong body,” said Ms. Steck, of the West End. “She was always more into playing with what would be considered girl toys, hanging out with girls. She was always bullied.” The harassment continued through middle school, but in high school, things finally changed.

“Brashear doesn’t tolerate it at all.”

The school has implemented de facto policies for restrooms, gym and other everyday situations that have triggered flare-ups between transgender students and schools in other states. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in a private lawsuit, citing Title IX in support of Gavin Grimm’s right to use the restroom that matches his gender identity at Gloucester High School in Virginia.

At Brashear, that right is unquestioned.

Ms. Steck and her daughter simply met with school administrators once to confirm her daughter’s choice to use the girls restroom, a process that must be followed by any student wishing to exercise that right.

“Brashear has been a great experience, the best one we’ve had with Pittsburgh Public Schools,” Ms. Steck said.

Brashear’s Gay Straight Alliance already is brainstorming ideas for Transgender Awareness Week, including buying #IllGoWithYou buttons. Wearers of the button offer their support to any transgender or gender-nonconforming student who wants company in a gendered space such as a restroom to avoid any harassment the student might encounter alone.

“So much of this is driven by our kids,” said Mr. Browne, who said the alliance has grown in four years from 12 members to 90.

Irene Xenakis, an early member of the alliance who graduated in June, said that by the time her years at Brashear were over, the climate for LGBTQ students had fundamentally changed.

“There are people — teachers, adults, parents — who are strengthening these kids. Publicly they’re showing that they care.”

But it’s only in the past few years that transgender issues have become a focus. Two students came out to Mr. Browne as transgender. In the midst of organizing a southwest Pennsylvania Gay Straight Alliance summit in spring of 2014 and planning for Day of Silence, Mr. Browne and a few others decided it was time to make Brashear’s stance clear.

Along with principal Kimberly Safran, Mr. Browne contacted Vanessa Davis, director of the former Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network’s Pittsburgh chapter, who helped create a plan for Brashear.

Students worked to organize teacher-training workshops, put up posters and advocate for the safety they wished to see in the halls and classrooms at Brashear.

Transgender students may choose the name they put on their ID and the gender pronouns that their teachers and peers use to refer to them. Locker rooms are treated the same as bathrooms. In the spring, Brashear’s prom dress code was not gender specific, setting out guidelines for suits and dresses, rather than male and female dress.

“It’s raising our own level of consciousness with things that sometimes you don’t think about,” Ms. Safran said. “We’re writing things so that they’re applicable for all students.”

Mr. Browne wants the policy to become districtwide.

This past spring, he sat in on meetings with district representatives, including Jocelyn Kramer, deputy solicitor for Pittsburgh Public Schools. She calls Brashear’s draft “perfectly timely.”

The district is working with the federal Office of Civil Rights to update its nondiscrimination and harassment policies, Ms. Kramer said. The district’s protections under Title IX include gender identity but have not been recently updated.

Board policies are “a recitation of the law and position of the board,” Ms. Kramer said. It’s the administrative regulations that are at play here, the “more technical pieces” — permitting students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify, allowing them to choose their name on nonofficial school documents, not permitting a dress code that would prohibit gender expression.

“The policy is the why. The administrative is the how.”

Ms. Kramer said the administrative regulations, which require review but not a formal vote from the school board, are being “informed by the work Brashear has done.”

“They may not be identical,” she said, stating that the district hopes to streamline the language because generalizing school-specific policies over the district is difficult. “Different schools have different needs.”

Ms. Kramer anticipates the policy and administrative regulations going before the board in October at the latest. After board review, they would go into effect immediately with an update of the online policy manual. The next cycle of staff professional development in the winter will include training on transgender issues.

Ms. Safran has already begun that process, continuing education and awareness among her staff, especially social workers and counselors, as the draft policy continues to develop. “Some of my staff are more and less familiar with trans people and their experience,” she said.

As her daughter passes through grades, Ms. Steck has often seen that it’s the attitudes surrounding the students that can affect them most.

Although she mentioned a strong network of teachers at Brashear, Ms. Xenakis said there’s still progress to be made in other teachers’ attitudes.

“People have grown up the way they’ve been raised. I’m not asking them to change. Just to pay attention to what they say, and how they can affect somebody still growing.”

Elizabeth Miles: [email protected].