Charting a
Path to
Gender
Inclusive
Schools
By Joel Baum
Gender Spectrum
I
ndependent schools are particularly well suited for addressing issues related to students’
gender. What does it look like for them to do so?
The conversation related to gender that is currently taking place in many schools often focus-
es specifically on the needs and experiences of transgender 1 and other gender diverse stu-
dents. That these young people face extraordinary challenges at school, as well as in society
as a whole, is irrefutable. However, many of these difficulties are borne of a larger set of social
forces, namely the assumptions and expectations that we place on people based on limited,
binary notions of gender. Gender norms—whether about our bodies, the types of jobs a
person should do, our interests, or how we should dress (among other things)—impact all of
us. Young people in particular are often hindered by their ever-present nature. Like perhaps
no other institution in our society, schools are well-positioned to interrupt this dynamic.
1. A note on language. Throughout this article, the term transgender will be used in a binary sense, meaning an
individual who is assigned a particular sex at birth, and who now identifies as the “opposite” gender. Used in this way,
it contrasts with the word cisgender, which refers to an individual whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were
assigned at birth. In other words, a cisgender man is someone who was assigned the sex of male at birth and feels like a
man. Both of these terms contrast with the term non-binary, which refers to any individual who does not identify within
the boy/girl or man/woman binary.
Page 2 Summer 2019
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