{"id":6763,"date":"2017-03-11T11:11:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T05:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=6763"},"modified":"2017-03-11T11:11:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T05:26:50","slug":"betsy-devos-met-with-transgender-students-their-parents-but-was-she-moved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/betsy-devos-met-with-transgender-students-their-parents-but-was-she-moved\/","title":{"rendered":"Betsy DeVos met with transgender students & their parents, but was she moved?"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARIA DANILOVA\/<\/span>WASHINGTON (Pahichan) March 11 \u2014 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos<\/a> watched a transgender<\/a> girl eat apple sauce and draw and listened to another student\u2019s emotional story of feeling marginalized at school, as activists pressed DeVos to make good on her promise to protect all students.<\/p>\n

Parents and activists who met with DeVos on Wednesday said they thought she was moved by their stories, but they still left with little hope that she would be a strong advocate for transgender children.<\/p>\n

The meeting at the Education Department<\/a> came two weeks after the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance that instructed schools to let students use bathrooms in line with their gender, not their assigned sex\u00a0at birth. The decision was strongly condemned by civil rights groups, who said that it would harm already highly vulnerable students, but it was applauded by conservatives, who said the guidelines violated the safety and privacy of all other students.<\/p>\n

Attending the meeting were Ellie Ford, a 5-year-old transgender girl, and high school student Grace Dolan-Sandrino, who told DeVos the middle school she attended did not let her use the girls\u2019 bathroom \u2014 as the Obama guidance was not in place then.<\/p>\n

DeVos would not commit to any specific actions to help protect students like Grace and Ellie, the parents said. One parent at the meeting said she had lost a transgender child to suicide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grace\u2019s mother, Karen Dolan, said of the education secretary: \u201cShe sat there and listened to our stories through our tears and at times she seemed to appear visibly moved, but she didn\u2019t react.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeVos agreed that there were \u201cthousands and thousands\u201d of transgender students across the country and that children are born that way, according to Dolan, who lives in Washington\u2019s Maryland<\/a> suburbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one thing between increasing your understanding and having your heart moved for an hour and then out of her position of power either acting to protect transgender and gender nonconforming children or acting in a way that will make their lives worse,\u201d Dolan added. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen any concrete action that would give me any reason to be hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace, 16, who now goes to an inclusive high school where she can use the girls\u2019 bathroom, said that she told DeVos that her decision to scrap the guidance was \u201can extremely cruel thing to do.\u201d She said that being in an unwelcoming environment dramatically increases a transgender child\u2019s chances of developing depression or committing suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not fair for them to grow up with their human rights being denied,\u201d Grace said in an interview with The Associated Press<\/em>. \u201cThis is beyond bathrooms; this is about our right as transgender people, as humans to exist, to simply exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa Ford, Ellie\u2019s mother and a resident of the District of Columbia<\/a>, said that the Education Department already has an existing document, published on its website, that outlines best practices that some schools have used with regard to transgender students. She urged DeVos to promote the document publicly and urge schools to use it.<\/p>\n

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that she was grateful to DeVos for devoting two hours of her time to the meeting. \u201cI think decision makers should meet the people they are deciding about.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time Keisling said rescinding the bathroom guidance was \u201cextremely harmful\u201d and urged DeVos to take steps to undo the harm and increase protections for transgender children.<\/p>\n

DeVos said she was glad to meet with transgender families and hopes to continue the dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery school and every school leader has a moral responsibility to protect all students and ensure every child is respected and can learn in an accepting environment,\u201d DeVos said in a statement. \u201cI remain committed to advocating for and fighting on behalf of all students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copy:\u00a0http:\/\/www.lgbtqnation.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARIA DANILOVA\/WASHINGTON (Pahichan) March 11 \u2014 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos watched a transgender girl eat apple sauce and draw and listened to another student\u2019s emotional story of feeling marginalized at school, as activists pressed DeVos to make good on her promise to protect all students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":6764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8,621,490],"tags":[1347,458],"class_list":["post-6763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-human-rights","category-news","category-slider","tag-education-department","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6765,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6763\/revisions\/6765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}