Introduction

“Our role [as educators] is to try to meet young people where they are and to be relevant so that when we say things, or we set up a classroom, it’s actually something young people opt into with their minds and their hearts, so they are willing to say, ‘I’ll learn something from you.’”

—Bex Mui (she/her), Director of Stonewall National Education Project

THIS BOOK is intended for anyone who helps shape the educational experiences of transgender and non‐binary youth. (For a glossary of the terms and definitions used throughout this book—including transgender, non‐binary, gender binary, and more—see Chapter 2.) You may be a classroom teacher, a school administrator, a policymaker, the parent of a trans student, or simply someone who wants to create safer, more inclusive, and more affirming classroom environments. You may even be trans yourself!

Using This Book

How ever you have arrived here, we encourage you to use this book in whatever way makes the most sense to you. For those at the beginning of their allyship journey, it may make sense to read the book in order from cover to cover. For folks with a little more knowledge, feel free to skip around, jump right to a particular section, or identify the potential obstacles to equality that exist in your school community and go from there. At the end of each chapter, you'll find thoughts on addressing real‐world challenges and questions for personal reflection. And while these can be helpful for individual learners, we also hope they can provide some focus and structure for book groups or community learning.

With that in mind, we hope you'll use the resources in this book not only to educate yourself but to educate your peers and colleagues as well. We'd like to think that the adults in your school community want all students to learn, grow, and thrive, but it's critical to dig into whether or not those goals are actually being achieved. Melinda Mangin (she/her)—author of Transgender Students in Elementary School and a professor in the Department of Education Theory, Policy, and Administration in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University—put it this way: “Most educators are well intentioned, want to do better, and aren't trying to cause harm. That said, the best of intentions doesn't mean you aren't creating harm.”

But you don't need to go it alone! We believe that if you are looking to better support trans and non‐binary students, others in your school community are looking to do so as well (they just might not be very public about it). It's possible that your school or district already has resources, policies, or best practices on working with trans and non‐binary students. For example, Booker Marshall (they/he), the LGBTQ+ and Sexual Health Program Manager with Chicago Public Schools, cites “the demand from schools” as the primary reason for the growth of the Chicago Public Schools resources and professional development for creating LGBTQ+ supportive environments.

Even if you have not yet found allies in your community, you don't have to go it alone because you have the advice and encouragement of everyone we consulted over the course of writing this book. We conducted more than 50 interviews, speaking with educators, advocates, and researchers as well as trans youth and their families. Those interviews all took place in late 2022 and early 2023, mostly via Zoom. Quotes from those conversations can be found throughout these pages.

And while the data, organizations, and policy conversations mentioned in this book are U.S.‐focused, the best practices for working with trans and non‐binary students are broadly applicable. Likewise, if the resources you want don't yet exist in your school or district, you may be the perfect person to get the ball rolling by hosting a book group, sharing excerpts with colleagues and peers, or simply bringing a new perspective to your existing work.

We also know that advocating for trans and non‐binary rights can be emotionally draining. That's why we spoke with trans students about what brings them joy and what gives them hope for the future. We'll be sprinkling those throughout the book as well as some trans joy thoughts and resources we've seen elsewhere. In the Conclusion, we also have thoughts about hope for the future from trans students.

Trans Joy

The best thing [about being trans or non‐binary] is being able to express who I am and not having to be limited by the gender binary. I feel complete and amazing!

—Emma (she/her), 14

Finally, while this book is mainly intended for adults, we always recommend that you work with trans and non‐binary students, rather than simply assuming you (as the adult) know what issues are the most important to them.

Focusing on Trans and Non‐Binary Students

Every student deserves a learning environment in which they can thrive as their full, authentic selves. So then, some might ask, why should we focus specifically on how to support trans and non‐binary students? There are a few ways to answer this question.

Trans and Non‐Binary Students Need Support

Simply put, trans and non‐binary students face challenges that their cis peers do not. The Trevor Project's 2021 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that:

• More than 3 in 4 trans and non‐binary youth reported symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder in the past two weeks.
• More than 2 in 3 trans and non‐binary youth reported symptoms of major depressive disorder in the past two weeks.
• More than half of trans and non‐binary youth had seriously considered suicide in the past year.1

The Trevor Project also found that affirmation and support can be life‐saving. Respecting the names and pronouns of trans and non‐binary youth, and allowing them to change legal documents is associated with lower rates of attempted suicide.2 Here's how Keygan Miller (they/them), Public Training Manager at the Trevor Project, put it:

Students are spending a third of their day or more in schools. And so if a young person is LGBTQ, the impact on their daily life of an affirming space is hugely shaped by [their] school, especially if they don't have an affirming home life; school might be the only space for that. And we know from our research that when LGBTQ students can have access to affirming schools—and trans students have support from their teachers and peers—they have lower rates of attempting suicide, they have less mental health issues, etc.

In fact, if you look at affirming spaces—schools, home, community, etc.—schools actually have one of the highest connections to lowering those rates, when [the school is] affirming. So that's a big deal. And we also know from our national survey research that when young people learn about LGBTQ people and issues in school, we also see significantly lower odds of a suicide attempt by our LGBTQ students. So just by learning LGBTQ history, or learning about an LGBTQ person, that can lower those [suicide] rates.

Schools then become this twofold space: What are we learning about, how are we growing in our understanding of our community? But also, where can I find that safe and affirming space? You have to be addressing both of those pieces. And doing that is going to increase [student] mental health and lower suicidality.

Ultimately, increased visibility of trans people across the United States has resulted in both greater support and greater pushback. One 2022 survey found that, paradoxically, more and more people in the United States favor protecting transgender people from the abstract idea of “discrimination,” but also that more and more people believe gender is solely determined by someone's sex at birth.3 (See the Glossary of Terms and Definitions in Chapter 2 for more on what that “sex assigned at birth” means, and why this survey presents something of a paradox for trans people.) Trans and non‐binary students need focused attention to ensure that vague or generalized ideas of support are translated into actual policy and practice.

Logan Casey (he/him), Senior Policy Researcher & Advisor for the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), told us about the double‐edged sword of visibility:

While knowing a trans person doesn't magically fix everything, it does—for a lot of people—really help begin a journey of changing hearts and minds. But it's a double‐edged sword: growing visibility is good because it helps us as trans people find each other, and not having to grow up the way I did, for example, with not knowing any trans person, or even what a trans person was, other than these really awful caricatures in the media that often ended in violent ways. There are some good things about that growing visibility, what it means for us as a trans community, and being able to find and see and connect to each other.

But with growing visibility, we're now seeing increased attention in the political sphere, targeting trans people and our rights to access basic things like housing, medical care, all kinds of things. So not purely a good trend. But definitely, there are good parts of it.

We are in a particularly critical moment for trans...