A transgender rights group announced Wednesday that it has filed a
discrimination complaint in Colorado on behalf of a first-grader who was
born a boy but identifies as a girl.
The filing stems from a
decision announced last December by officials at Fountain-Fort Carson
School District that Coy Mathis could no longer use the girls' bathroom
at Eagleside Elementary.
Mother Kathryn Mathis said she and her husband were shocked.
"We were very confused
because everything was going so well, and they had been so accepting,
and all of a sudden it changed and it was very confusing and very
upsetting because we knew that, by doing that, she was going to go back
to being unhappy," she told CNN. "It was going to set her up for a lot
of bad things."
Coy was born with male
sex organs but has identified as female since she could express herself,
her mother said. The child had attended classes during her kindergarten
year with no problems and no complaints from anyone at the school,
Mathis told reporters at the Colorado Capitol in Denver, where she was
flanked by her husband, Jeremy, and four other children.
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Wearing a girl's winter coat, Coy stood behind her mother.
Afraid bullies would make fun of her daughter, Kathryn Mathis said she pulled Coy out of school during winter break.
"In the end, we just want
what is the best for Coy," Mathis said about the complaint. "We want
her to be able to go back to school and be treated equally without
discrimination and harassment."
Attorney Michael
Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is
representing Coy, said the complaint -- which was filed with the
Colorado Civil Rights Division -- is intended to have an impact beyond a
single family or school.
"For many transgender
people, discrimination is a daily part of life. Unfortunately for Coy,
it has started very early," he said, adding that the complaint is a
"test of Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act."
"The world is going to
be looking at the school," he said, which can "send a message to the
world and teach tolerance, fair play and equal rights."
A girl's life
For most of the past year, Coy has dressed as a girl.
Coy's passport and state-issued identification recognize her as female.
Kathryn Mathis said she
got a call "out of the blue" from the school in December saying that Coy
could use the boys' bathroom, gender-neutral faculty bathrooms or the
nurse's bathroom, but not the girls' facilities.
The district "took into
account not only Coy, but other students in the building, their parents
and the future impact a boy with male genitals using a girls' bathroom
would have as Coy grew older," a letter the family's attorney received
in December said.
"However, I'm certain
you can appreciate that, as Coy grows older and his male genitals
develop along with the rest of his body, at least some parents and
students are likely to become uncomfortable with his continued use of
the girls' restroom."
In a statement Tuesday,
the district's attorney, W. Kelly Dude, said: "The district firmly
believes it has acted reasonably and fairly with respect to this issue.
However, the district believes the appropriate and proper forum for
discussing the issues identified in the charge is through the Division
of Civil Rights process. The district is preparing a response to the
charge which it will submit to the division. Therefore, the district
will not comment further on this matter out of respect for the process
which the parents have initiated."
"It's sad that the
Mathis family had to file a civil rights complaint in order for their
daughter to be treated equally," said Herndon Graddick, president of the
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in a statement. "The
students clearly aren't the only people at this school who need more
education."
A little-studied group
Transgender children
experience a disconnect between their sex, which is based on their
anatomy, and their gender, which includes behaviors, roles and
activities, experts say.
For the general public,
transgender identity may be a new concept, though many might recall Chaz
Bono, the child of entertainers Sonny and Cher. Born female, Bono
underwent a transition in his 40s to become a man. He wrote in his book "Transition" that, even as a child, he had been "aware of a part of me that did not fit."
He appeared last year as a man on "Dancing with the Stars," in part, he said, to destigmatize being transgender.
Comprehensive data and
studies about transgender children are rare. International studies have
estimated that anywhere from 1 in 30,000 to 1 in 1,000 people are
transgender.
Some children as young
as age 3 show early signs of gender dysphoria or gender identity
disorder, mental health experts who work with transgender children say.
These children are not
intersex -- they do not have a physical disorder or malformation of
their sexual organs. The gender issue exists in the brain, though
experts do not agree on whether it's psychologically or physiologically
based.
Many transgender people report feeling discomfort with their gender as early as they can remember.
Gender identity is often
confused with sexual orientation. The difference is that "gender
identity is who you are, and sexual orientation is who you want to have
sex with," said Dr. Johanna Olson, a professor of clinical pediatrics at
the University of Southern California, who treats transgender children.
Children around age 3
are probably not interested in sexual orientation, she said. But experts
say some children who look like they will be transgender in early
childhood turn out to be gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Differences in schools
School policies toward transgender students vary across the United States.
In New York, for example, the law says students can't be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity.
But in Maine, a court
ruled in November that a school district did not violate a transgender
student's rights when she was told she couldn't use the girls' bathroom.
Dude, the Colorado
school district's attorney, has said there is nothing in that state
requiring public schools to permit transgender students to use restrooms
intended for the gender with which they identify.
He added that the
Fountain-Fort Carson School District adheres to the Colorado
Anti-Discrimination Act in all respects: "Coy attends class as all other
students, is permitted to wear girls' clothes and is referred to as the
parents have requested."
She also has easy access to bathrooms other than the girls', Dude said.
Coy's case will be the
first to challenge a restroom restriction under the state's
anti-discrimination act, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education
Fund said.
For now, the first-grader is being home-schooled.
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