Colorado school officials decline mediation in transgender restroom dispute
By Keith Coffman | Reuters
March 8, 2013http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-school-officials-decline-mediation-transgender-restroom-dispute-021302991.htmlDENVER (Reuters) - School officials who banned a 6-year-old transgender girl in Colorado from using the girls' lavatory have declined to take part in mediation of the civil rights complaint brought by her parents, the two sides said on Friday.
The family's lawyer, Michael Silverman, said the first step in seeking to resolve such a complaint is to see if both sides will agree to mediation, which the Fountain-Fort Carson School District declined to do.
"We are shocked that her school will not even meet to talk about this so that Coy can quickly return to school," said Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. He said the commission would now open a lengthy inquiry into the case.
The school district, which has until mid-March to formally answer charges in the complaint, acknowledged having declined mediation, a step it said "would be unproductive."
The parents said in a statement on Friday that in limiting their daughter to the boys' lavatory, a gender-neutral employee restroom or the bathroom in the school's health clinic the district was inviting mistreatment of their daughter by classmates.
"Coy is not sick, she is not an adult, and she is not a boy," the statement said. "We are saddened that her school will not even come to the table to talk about this issue."
But the district said the proper forum to discuss the issue is in the "process initiated ... by the parents," and not in the news media.
