This is a political issue, but it's also personal—and I have a unique connection to it. In 2016, I was invited to join several other students to work with the Department of Education under President Obama to craft a progressive, life-saving bathroom guidance which clarified that Title IX anti-discrimination protections also extend to gender identity. About a dozen of us kids worked with then-US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Catherine Lhamon to include the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming students in that important, historical political document. In February of 2017, a month after Donald Trump took office, his administration rescinded it.Please evaluate each allegation separately, searching for a permissible jurisdictional basis for OCR to retain and pursue the complaint. It is permissible, for example, for one allegation in a complaint (such as harassment based on gender stereotypes) to go forward while another allegation (such as denial of access to restrooms based on gender identity) is dismissed.
After Trump's Department of Education dismantled our work, I was invited back to Capitol Hill. It was the same table I sat at two years ago—but this time, I sat across from our nation's new Secretary of Education, a businesswoman named Betsy DeVos. In my eyes, DeVos had just given permission to the country to discriminate against me.Read more: I'm a Trans Teen—Stop Talking About My Genitalia Under the Guise of 'Privacy'
I'm clearly political, but Ellie just sat at the table drawing pictures; she's young, and didn't know much of what was going on. It was important for secretary DeVos to see the trans kids that she and the Trump administration hurt. By rescinding Obama's guidance, they have given the country permission to continue hurting us, too. I watched as DeVos told Ellie that she has a granddaughter her age, and I wondered—would DeVos give the country permission to discriminate against her granddaughter? Because however familial her comment appeared, she had effectively taken action that would make that little girl's life more difficult, and less safe. Is the grandchild of Betsy DeVos more deserving of human rights than Ellie, or me?Is the grandchild of Betsy DeVos more deserving of human rights than Ellie, or me?
Most recently, reports state that DeVos is meeting with groups that are considered anti-LGBT by the Southern Poverty Law Center: Focus on the Family and The Family Research Council. The DeVos family has a long history of supporting these organizations. Now, they've taken my seat at the table. And instead of listening to trans youth or caring about kids like Ellie, the bigoted assumptions of well-funded organizations may help this administration decide the fate of LBTQ students nation-wide.Ms. DeVos, I came to see you face to face, and I begged you to take the human rights of all students seriously. That includes transgender students like me and Ellie. I charged you to stand against the discrimination that causes us great levels of depression, anxiety, and suicide, and yet you have failed to stand up for civil and human rights.On June 17th, The Washington Post reported that you directed your Office of Civil Rights to close investigations of bullying, harassment, and discrimination against transgender students in Ohio and Illinois. Now you are not only refusing to say explicitly that federal dollars cannot be used to fund schools that discriminate against students based on their gender identity and/or sexual orientation—you are taking an active role in violating trans students' human rights.I charged you to stand against discrimination.
At the end of our meeting earlier this year, you looked at me with tears in your eyes and told me that you wouldn't wish my experience with discrimination on any other child. Yet now you have ensured that future to kids across the country.But we will resist you; we will fight bad policy with good policy. We will protest you. We will advocate for justice and equality. And—perhaps in the long-run—we will win. Because truth and justice are on our side.