Posted on 09/22/2010 9:40:56 AM PDT by markomalley
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Human Rights Commission ruled Monday that Orono Middle School unlawfully discriminated against a sixth-grader during the 2008-2009 school year by not letting the male-to-female transgender student use the girls’ bathroom.
This is the same student whose parents filed a similar discrimination complaint against Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono when their child was a fifth grader there during the 2007-2008 school year. That case resulted in the same ruling against the school district in June 2009.
Also Monday, the commission members again began talks about developing anti-discrimination guidelines specifically for schools under the Maine Human Rights Act.
The parents of the child, who no longer attends schools in the district, wrote in their latest complaint to the commission that she experienced anxiety and depression after officials at Orono Middle School forced her to use a gender-neutral bathroom and her peers picked on her.
“In choosing to disallow [her] to use the girls’ bathroom facilities, the school was implicitly isolating and alienating her from other students,” the parents wrote. “We determined that we needed to modify our actions to do the best we could to ensure [our child’s] safety.”
The school’s response stated that the district accommodated the child by training the staff, educating the students, giving the transgender student her own bathroom, giving her her own locker room and meeting with her parents almost daily.
“For the most part, she appeared to be happy and involved in the school community,” the school district wrote.
In addition to the bathroom complaint, the student’s family alleged that Orono Middle School subjected her to a hostile educational environment.
The commission’s investigator did cite in her report derogatory remarks made by other students as well as several allegations of stalking by a boy who once followed the transgender student into the girls room and harassed her by calling her “faggot.”
But the commissioners agreed with the investigator that there were “no reasonable grounds” to believe the school subjected the student to a hostile educational environment.
Neither side was in attendance at Monday’s meeting because neither party filed a letter of disagreement with the commission investigator’s report.
“I don’t think it changes anything,” the school district’s lawyer, Melissa Hewey, said regarding the commission’s decision. “I think it’s a good ruling in that it recognized the efforts the school went through to help the student in terms of the harassment issue. The bathroom issue is something the court has to rule on.”
The district is currently fighting a lawsuit against the child’s family in Penobscot County Superior Court. The new decision against the middle school will likely be added to the lawsuit, which was filed after the commission’s ruling in the Asa Adams case.
Hewey said the Orono school district has not changed its policies.
“The student is not there, so it is currently not an issue,” Hewey said.
She said no other students in the district have since asked for accommodations related to their gender.
The family’s lawyer said Monday that they filed the human rights complaint against Orono Middle School because the school’s policies remain unchanged.
“[Orono Middle School] continued to discriminate against the child after the last [commission] decision. It is clear we have to pursue this further to get them to comply,” attorney Jodi Nofsinger said Monday after the ruling.
Nofsinger said the legal battle stretched beyond this one child and is more about making the Orono schools comfortable educational environments for other transgender children who might attend the schools in the future.
“They continue [discrimination] up until the present time. They are in violation to the law,” Nofsinger said. “The school’s policy still has not changed.”
Members of the Maine Human Rights Commission also discussed Monday plans to work in coordination with the state education commissioner to develop rules regarding sexual orientation, race, national origin and disabilities as they apply to education under the Maine Human Rights Act. Currently, the Maine Human Rights act does not have antidiscrimination policies in those areas. Talks regarding rule-making should begin in early 2011, after the gubernatorial election and after a new administration is in place, according to Patricia Ryan, the executive director of the Human Rights Commission.
If it is male from the waist down it should use the appropriate facilities.
If the boy in question thought he was Napoleon, would they be referring to him as "his Majesty" or "his serene Highness"?
No.
This is the only form of mental illness where sane people are supposed to pretend that they're the ones who are crazy.
Gee, how about making it a comfortable environment for all the 'normal' children that already attend that school?
Well, that is nothing compared to the anxiety and depression that would result from "her" whipping it out in the girls locker room or bathroom.
Your comment is the best way I’ve ever seen this phrased.
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More insanity. This 6th grade boy is not a "transgender". He is mentally and emotionally confused and what his parents are doing is flat out abuse. And the court are fostering the abuse.
They are letting a sixth grader determine he has a “gender identity” problem! We need a revolution while there is anything left worth saving.
Where are the Conservative politicians on this?
Do they need to take a poll to determine that we don’t want this at all?
I’m in Maine, and this isn’t the only case where the Democrats in charge think that you can just decide what sex you are.
Wail on the Democrats. Win votes. Do not let up.
Christine! Help!
First, win on transsexuals.
They are clearly CRAZY PEOPLE WHO NEED MENTAL HEALTH CARE.
Win on this.
Then, because the Gays were so welcoming to transsexuals.
Gays are clearly CRAZY PEOPLE WHO NEED MENTAL HEALTH CARE.
Win on this.
Christine! Help!
Can no one speak for the 3/4s of Americans who know what is right on this one?
Are there NO socially conservative politicians?
They’d be letting him run France.
There is a Maine Human Rights Commission. The members of this commission are appointed by the Governor, who is a Democrat.
The Democrats have determined that men are women in certain cases, against all science, reason, common sense, decency, etc.
These parents should be locked up for child abuse.
The other parents should file suits to stop this idiocy on the grounds that their perfectly normal daughters will be traumatized by the intrusion of a biological male in their intimate space.
This mentally ill child and his enabler parents may think of him as a female, but the rest of the world is not obligated to indulge their pathology.
Yeah. I got that. The problem is DNA that says differently. It doesn't matter what the voices in their heads are telling them. Science says that the "voices" are lying.
I call BS on this whole subject for the very reason that we’re talking about a 6th grade “transgender”.
Whatever mental/emotional/physical issues experienced by “transgendered” people, it is a subject to be dealt with when such people are adults, not when they are still growing and developing.
To somehow tie an issue with a child in school in with the whole gay/lesbian/whatever movement is asinine.
I also think that these issues are completely beyond the scope of schools to deal with. If someone has these issues, he/she/it needs to deal with them after he/she/it is an adult. It’s such a simple concept, yet any common sense apparently doesn’t exist anymore in this country.
And I would love to know if the parents are of a liberal/radical bent. None of this could happen without the express consent of the parents to press the issue.
Other conditions:
Transracial. You’re white. But you FEEL black. Your grades and SATs aren’t good. You fill out black on your college application. You get in. You get called on it.
“What, but I FEEL black on the inside. Therefore, I’m black.”
Transspecies. You’re a dude who is arrested for public urination. Solution: You’re a dog. You don’t arrest dogs for peeing outside.
There is no end to this.
I read a story somewhere about organic cotton. Organic cotton is expensive. Cotton growers don’t want to grow organic cotton because it’s too expensive to grow and process. But they like that organic cotton fetches more in the marketplace. They want to use GMO cotton. Roundup ready cotton or whatever they come up with. Their solution: change the meaning of organic.
Stop changing the meaning of words to make the world worse for most people. Men are men and women are women. It’s scientific fact in the chromosomes. But the government wants to decree otherwise. Let’s change the meaning of marriage so that crazy people can get privileges. Let’s make it impossible for consumers to buy organic cotton by defining it out of existence and enriching Monsanto in the process.
No more. Our enemies are sick and evil people.
Christine! Help!
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