Claire Tralle’s Minneapolis Public Schools’ student, Hary, came out as nonbinary in kindergarten.
It was 2020 when they came out and classes were still being held on Zoom. But, a year later when in-person classes resumed, Tralle says Hary faced constant misgendering and confusion. They didn’t see themselves in the gendered language used by MPS faculty and staff.
“Staff and educators would say, ‘OK, boys on this side, girls on this side …’ as a nonbinary individual, when you’re only hearing ‘boys’ and ‘girls,’ that feels very othering,” Tralle said.
Tralle doesn’t believe most teachers or staff were being malicious when this happened. Without a district-wide uniform policy, many simply did not have the knowledge or understanding to work with gender-diverse students, she said.
“Language and understanding is constantly evolving,” Tralle said. “Even people within the queer community or sexuality educators or other ‘in the know’ people; it’s still evolving and changing for us.”
This past month, the MPS Board of Education unanimously passed a district-wide gender inclusion policy, expanding support for the district’s transgender and nonbinary youth. This policy was crafted and advocated for by Tralle and other parents of trans and nonbinary children.
Some key points in the policy include:
- Elementary schools are now required to change a student’s name and pronouns upon request at any grade level, not just starting in 6th grade.
- All schools are required to provide improved bathroom access for transgender and non-binary students, including more accessible all-gender bathrooms that are not locked or hidden away.
- It implements requirements for staff to receive continued education on gender identity issues. Notably, there are no specific details on when or how often this training happens. The details on this will be left to the district’s superintendent’s discretion.
While the policy was passed unanimously by the MPS school board, Tralle noted it should not have taken until 2024 for a uniform gender inclusion policy to be implemented in the district.
“I think that a lot of people assumed, because we’re Minneapolis and because we’re a progressive city, of course this must have already existed,” Tralle said.
St. Paul passed a gender inclusion policy in 2015. Tralle said St. Paul’s policy was very short compared to the MPS policy. “I think that was reflective of 2015,” she said.
The politicization of trans youth
In 2023, Gov. Tim Walz signed a transgender refuge bill into law, which protects gender affirming care for transgender youth in the state and coming into the state to receive it. Refuge bills were also passed in California, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Washington and Vermont and Washington, D.C.
These protections were adopted as anti-trans bills exploded across the country over the past few years. Trans Legislation Tracker, an independent research organization tracking bills that impact trans and gender-diverse people across the United States, is tracking more than 617 bills, more than any other year on record. States have already passed 44 bills in 2024. In 2023, 87 bills passed, compared to 26 bills passed in 2022 and 18 passed in 2021.
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These bills include legislation limiting gender affirming practices in schools and restrictions on transgender participation in athletic programing. As of May 2024, 25 states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for teenage students.
“It is more dangerous to be trans – especially a trans youth – now than it was five or 10 years ago because the GOP has decided to make this a political issue,” Tralle said. “It never needed to be a political issue. These are just kids trying to exist and go to school and play soccer and be themselves.”
As transgender youth and adults have been increasingly politicized, cases violence and hate against LGBTQ+ youth have also risen. In states with anti LGBTQ+ laws, schools hate crimes have quadrupled, according to a Washington Post analysis of FBI data. Nationwide, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ youth reported to the FBI doubled in 2021 and 2022 as compared to 2015-2019. While states with protections remaining for this population of youth had less of an increase in these crimes, there still was an increase.
Continued education around gender inclusion
Gender inclusion protections at all levels of community including in state and local governments, along with in schools, have become increasingly important as gender identity has become increasingly politicized, said Aliya Finman-Palmer, director of Educational Equity for OutFront Minnesota, a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ+ communities across the state.
As attacks and legislation against gender expansive youth have increased, more and more school districts across the state have sought help from OutFront as they look to adopt their own gender inclusion policies, Finman-Palmer said. School districts like St. Paul and Duluth have already adopted policies and OutFront is currently working with districts including Bloomington and Rochester.
Finman-Palmer is hopeful that more schools will continue to look into these policies.
“As more districts adopt these policies, it means that more and more kids have stability in school and the support that they need in these spaces,” she said.
A large component of these policies includes offering training for school district staff. OutFront offers more than a dozen trainings both in-person and online on a range of topics, including LGBTQIA+ 101, which covers terminology and basic concepts.
Notably, gender inclusion policies are not only for queer and trans students, Finman-Palmer said.
“If you are coming into a school building and you’re a parent of a child or a caregiver of a child of different gender than yourself, you’re able to go into the facility and be in there for what any needs might be,” she said. “So this also helps with disability access.”
Parents behind the policy
Parents, students and teachers were ultimately the ones who pushed to get a gender inclusion policy on the books for MPS.
It is important that children are able to not only explore and acknowledge their own identity, but also be believed by adults as they do so, said Nicole Gehle, a parent of a nonbinary MPS student and a first grade teacher with the district.
“If they are telling us something about themselves then we should believe them,” Gehle said. “That’s how we want to support them and care for them, and if they change and grow, we’ll love them also. Just like adults change and grow, kids should be allowed to too.”
The policy is also an important step for allyship, Gehle said. Seeing unanimous support for the policy from the school board was in itself encouraging. This also helps create a space where kids can support their peers.
“It’s not only creating a mirror for students who need that support, it’s also creating a window for students to be able to see how we respect everyone,” Gehle said.
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Minneapolis has long had a reputation for being a hub to LGBTQ+ folks across the Midwest and beyond. This is what brought Anna Ehl and their family to the Twin Cities. Only a few years ago, the family moved from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Minneapolis to be in a more inclusive environment.
“As it happened, it was very lucky that we made that choice because part way through my child’s kindergarten year they let us know that they’re non binary,” Ehl said. “Where we had been living before would not have been a very welcoming environment to that identity. We felt really relieved that we made a good choice for our kid.”
But even in a community praised for its inclusiveness, Ehl’s child still was bullied on the playground, often violently, the parent said. When Ehl reached out to the school’s social worker, the conversation didn’t lead to any improvement. After going to the school’s principal Ehl’s child was transferred to a different school, but Ehl said it was clear more needed to be done to keep students safe.
“So that was a catalyzing moment for me where I was like, I need to be a lot more involved in what’s happening at school,” Ehl said.
Soon, Ehl met Tralle. The two set up an after school gay-straight alliance for LGBTQ+ students and were part of the group of parents who continued to advocate for and help draft the gender inclusion policy that passed.
Ehl hopes this policy can help LGBTQ+ children grow up in a safer environment where they can truly be themselves. According to a national survey by The Trevor Project, the number of LGBTQ+ youth facing suicidal thoughts has increased over the past few years.
“For me, it boils down to this: Maybe my child will always be gender diverse,” Ehl said. “Maybe my child will continue to be gender fluid through their whole life. Maybe they won’t. Maybe at some point, they’ll feel comfortable in the gender they were born in. Maybe at some point, they’ll feel comfortable settling in another gender. It’s not really up to me, and it doesn’t really matter, because what my job is is to love and support the child who’s in front of me.”
Winter Keefer
Winter Keefer is MinnPost’s Metro reporter. Follow her on Twitter or email her at wkeefer@minnpost.com.
