Methuen school faces parents' queries on student's gender issue
Officials back girl who seeks treatment as boy
By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | March 5, 2005
Dozens of parents flooded the Methuen school system with phone calls yesterday after a local newspaper reported that a fourth-grade girl had returned from the February school break requesting to be treated as a boy.
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The story has attracted the attention of local and national media, including a half-dozen television stations, according to Superintendent Phillip Littlefield, who spent most of yesterday fielding parent and media calls.
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Littlefield said the child has asked to be called a masculine version of his name, which the superintendent declined to disclose, upon the family's request. Other than that, nothing has changed, he said, and most of the 1,100 students at the Comprehensive Grammar School are taking the situation in stride. The child has not undergone sexual reassignment surgery, he said.
''For the kids who aren't close to him, it was Phyllis and now it's Phillip," said Littlefield, using other names for examples. ''And it's OK. They want to know what's for lunch."
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In 1999, Brockton school officials barred a 15-year-old student who is biologically male, but identifies as female, from attending school dressed in girl's clothing. A school psychologist diagnosed the student with transgendered disorder when the teenager was 13, in seventh grade, and the student started wearing makeup, skirts, wigs, and padded bras to school. The state Appeals Court upheld a Superior Court ruling in 2000 that a transgender male student can wear female clothing to class.
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Littlefield said the school has made appropriate accommodations for the child at the parents' request, but he said he has promised the parents confidentiality and could not be more specific. If students bring home questions that parents cannot answer, he said, they should call the school to speak to a staff member familiar with gender identity issues.
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Complete article:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/03/05/methuen_school_faces_parents_queries_on_students_gender_issue/
For more information about the rights of transgender students in Massachusetts public schoools, see:
http://www.transgenderlaw.org/resources/transyouthflyer.pdf