At a news conference Thursday, Dayton forcefully spoke out against Trump’s order. “This is not a, quote, states’ rights issue — it is a human rights issue, and it should be a constitutionally protected right,” Dayton said.
He urged Minnesota school districts to adhere to the rescinded guidance and said schools are still responsible for ensuring the safety of transgender students. State Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius on Thursday issued a message to school superintendents and charter school directors affirming the state’s position.
“These are vulnerable people with very challenging life circumstances and they deserve our compassion and support, not our attacks and demonization,” Dayton said.
Dayton’s office provided the results of a 2016 Minnesota student survey that found that transgender students are less likely to feel safe at school. The survey found that more than half of all transgender students have attempted suicide in the past year, compared with fewer than one in five students who are heterosexual or cisgender, meaning students who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth.
State Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said he planned to introduce legislation that would “simply uphold that it is the policy of the state to recognize the protections that [federal law] affords to all students.”
For many Minnesota schools, Trump’s reversal will have little to no immediate impact, said Kirk Schneidawind, executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association.
Minneapolis and St. Paul, among the state’s largest school districts, adapted their buildings and bathrooms long ago — even before Obama’s sweeping directive — and don’t anticipate any changes.
St. Paul, which considers itself a leader in the state for its gender inclusion policy approved in 2015, asks that students be called by preferred names and pronouns, giving them the right to participate in co-curricular activities and providing access to facilities that align with their gender. Minneapolis schools adhere to a similar policy.
“Every student has the right to a safe and welcoming education,” Minneapolis Superintendent Ed Graff said Thursday, reaffirming that protections for transgender students and staff “will remain the same today as they were yesterday.”
Other large districts, like Anoka-Hennepin and Eastern Carver County, have yet to adopt a formal bathroom policy but operate on a case-by-case basis.
Beginning in 2015, Eastern Carver County added at least one accommodating facility for transgender and nonconforming students in each of its 15 schools. “That’s what it means to serve a public school — we work with every student and family who walks through our doors,” said spokesman Brett Johnson.
At Anoka-Hennepin, where very few gender-neutral options exist, transgender students are expected to seek out administrators for special accommodations. Often they are permitted to use a single-stall or staff bathroom, said spokesman Jim Skelly.
“Many times, that’s their preference,” he said. “What we don’t have is people just walking into restrooms and causing problems.”
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