Great update:
Today my mother and I had a little conference at Equality Michigan with their director of victim services, the other worker with victim advocacy, and the director of programs from Affirmations (another LGBT group/resource center in Michigan). I just want to start by saying that they were soooo friendly, enthusiastic and ready to help. We all sat down at a conference table and they already pretty much had a plan laid out as to how we will approach the entire school situation.
Before we got all into what we will do however, we discussed everything that was going on with the school so everyone was on the same page. Basically they came to the conclusion that they believe the school is in violation to city ordinances because they cover gender identity, which is defined in city ordinances as gender expression regardless of the gender on one's birth certificate. (Also, we learned that the director of victim services is a lawyer, so she knows her stuff hah.)
Anyways, after all of that they let us know what the plan is going to be.
1.) They're going to team up with an LGBT attorney from the ACLU and write a letter to the principal including the city ordinances (I'm not exactly sure what else is going to be included). They (and me) hope to have this done by Monday. They also are going to try to set up some type of sensitivity training workshops for the staff at my school so they can have a better understanding of how to deal with LGBT students; gender identity/expression to be emphasized. Also they plan to contact the Emergency Financial Manager/ some other type of supervisor over the public school system and have a conference with them, my mother, myself, principal, security, and anyone else I feel should go.
2.) If my school does not react positively to all I outlined above, or if they choose to take legal action, the next step would be just that. The director was telling us that we could take it as far as federal court (I think) if it got to that point and the constitution could get involved because of something that would protect me in the constitution. . sorry there were so many terms going on and I could only absorb so much lol. Basically, we can take it as far as they want to legally and we would still have a good fight to put up.
They were really just emphasizing to my mother and I about huge community that is there to help us out, which is so freakin' cool. We were also informed of another ftm student at a school in my district who is going through a similar problem, but in his case he is having issues with the students not staff. So we are going to probably get in contact with them. Soooo yeah, a lot was discussed, I can't recall it all right now, but it was all good. I'm a ton more hopeful with the whole situation now that I know I have so much support behind me.
I will continue to keep this thread updated as much as possible. I'm not going down without a fight this time guys, so you don't either if you can help it! There are people out there to help.
P.S
I didn't include names because I don't know if they'd approve, but if you want to know what organizations are helping me:
http://www.equalitymi.org/http://www.goaffirmations.org/site/PageServer
