NYC Teachers Must Call Trans Kids By Preferred Pronouns, City Says

NEW YORK, NY — All city teachers will now be required to call students who identify as transgender by their preferred pronouns, "actual or perceived," according to a new set of guidelines drawn up this week by the NYC Department of Education.

Pronouns that trans students might want to use for themselves could include "they" or "ze," the guidelines say.

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The ACLU is calling the city's new trans handbook "some of the strongest, clearest guidance in the country on how schools must support and protect the rights of students."

Under the guidelines, teachers and other school staff are instructed to:

• Be supportive of trans students, "including those going through a gender transition"

• Defend them from bullies

• "Honor a student’s request to be referred to by the name and gender that corresponds to their gender identity"

• Use students' preferred names and genders on student IDs and in the majority of school records

• Permit trans students to "participate in physical education and intramural sports in accordance with the student’s gender identity"

• Allow them access to facilities — including restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms — that correspond with their gender identity

• Allow them to participate in all school activities, including "overnight field trips"

• Accept trans students into all-girls or all-boys schools based on which gender they've chosen

Principals at each of the city's school campuses are "responsible for ensuring that all staff are made aware of these guidelines and for making staff aware of appropriate training," district officials said.

And in order to better prepare teachers to handle all this, the district's new guide also includes a full glossary of politically correct terms related to gender — such as "cisgender," "gender nonconforming" and "intersex."

“These new guidelines are a leap forward for transgender students’ right to be themselves in New York City schools," Donna Lieberman, head of the ACLU's local branch, said in a statement Thursday. "This is all the more important in the wake of the Trump regime’s cruel moves last week to rescind similar guidelines at the federal level."

However, the ACLU leader said, the city should make it easier for gender-nonconforming students to update past school records to reflect their current identity.

Lead image by Ted Eytan/Flickr