Transgender kids -- Education and support are key
by Jean Hodges
03/13/2013 01:00:00 AM MDThttp://www.dailycamera.com/letters/ci_22764848/jean-hodges-transgender-kids-education-and-support-areThank you for Colleen O'Connor's article, "Doctors see more transgender kids" in the Sunday, March 3 Daily Camera. The controversial bathroom issues raised when Coy Mathis, a 6-year-old child in the Fountain, Colo., school district was banned from using the restroom that fits her affirmed identity as a girl, reveals how little some school administrators and many parents understand about what it means to be transgender. I appreciate the media effort to enlighten an uninformed public about transgender children whose families seek positive support from educators to help their children feel safe and secure.
There is a resource for parents of children like Coy and concerned educators who want to do the right thing for gender variant youngsters. TYES, Trans-Youth Education and Support, was formed in 2007 by a mother in an effort to find a friend for her six-year-old transgender daughter to help her feel less alone in the world. TYES is now a group of some 45 families living in urban, suburban, and rural areas across Colorado.
TYES parents say that once the schools were educated about trans-related issues, their children began to thrive socially, emotionally and academically in Colorado public and private schools. There are unique challenges these children face, such as which bathroom to use. Some children are so anxious about this that they don't use any bathroom during school hours.
The unfounded fears of these children being in the "wrong" bathroom disappear once teachers and other parents understand that these kids, more than most children, seek privacy and protection in restrooms. As Coy's parents can attest, their daughter had used the bathroom appropriate to her gender identity without incident for a year. It's not her classmates who have a problem; it is their parents and other adults.
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Learn more about Trans-Youth Education and Support here:
http://www.tyes-colorado.org/
