Transgender Students and Policy in K-12 Public Schools: Acknowledging Historical Harms and Taking Steps Toward a Promising Future,

Policy Brief - Mar 23, 2022

Author(s) - Elizabeth J. Meyer and Bethy Leonardi of the University of Colorado Boulder, and Harper B. Keenan of University of British Columbia

Transgender and nonbinary (collectively referred to here as “trans”) students are ill-served by most school environments. They experience challenges trying to navigate institutions that, at best, are poorly designed to support them and that often work against them. Although some districts and states have developed laws and policies to improve students’ experiences, many are either ill-conceived, ineffectively implemented, or reinforce restrictive and inflexible structures regulating gender.