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New York Metropolis faculties Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos reaffirmed the general public faculty system’s assist for LGBTQ+ college students in a letter to households on Monday, stating the Schooling Division’s insurance policies and tips stay in impact, regardless of a flurry of latest govt orders from President Donald Trump.
“We’re dedicated to sustaining a secure and supportive surroundings for all college students — one that’s free from discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying,” Aviles-Ramos mentioned within the letter. “As I lately shared with over 1,000 college students and workers attending our seventh annual Gender and Sexuality Alliance Summit, at New York Metropolis Public Faculties, we see you, we assist you, and we worth you.”
The assertion — which didn’t immediately seek advice from Trump or his govt orders — comes weeks after dad and mom criticized the Schooling Division for failing to concern a systemwide response to efforts by the federal authorities to limit how faculties assist gender nonconforming college students and educate problems with race within the classroom.
Within the letter, the colleges chancellor directed households to the town’s tips on gender — which embody insurance policies instructing workers to deal with college students by their most popular pronouns in school, providing faculties some discretion to not inform dad and mom when a scholar is socially transitioning in circumstances the place a household doesn’t settle for their gender identification, and permitting college students to hitch sports activities groups and use loos according to their gender identities.
A spokesperson for the Schooling Division confirmed no insurance policies had modified in mild of Trump’s govt orders.
Final week, the Schooling Division additionally republished a collection of movies targeted on LGBTQ+ historical past that had been developed with WNET, the native PBS affiliate, after the broadcasting community deleted the movies from its web site. These movies drew on materials from a part of the town’s “Hidden Voices” curriculum that targeted on uplifting the tales of distinguished LGBTQ+ folks.
Nonetheless, some dad and mom have been involved over the dearth of specificity within the chancellor’s letter.
Gavin Healy, a Manhattan mum or dad and member of District 2’s Group Schooling Council, or CEC, mentioned he was disillusioned that the letter didn’t particularly categorical assist for transgender college students at a time when their rights have been beneath assault by the Trump administration.
In latest weeks, Trump has sought to withhold federal funding from faculties that permit trans ladies to hitch sports activities groups according to their gender identities. He has additionally issued govt orders in search of to stop faculties from instructing “gender ideology,” a phrase Trump and his supporters have used to broadly seek advice from discussions of gender identification or the existence of transgender folks.
In different govt orders, Trump has appeared to limit entry to gender-affirming take care of transgender kids and youngsters, and to outline gender as a male-female binary that can’t be modified.
Efforts to erode protections for trans college students have additionally occurred domestically. Final 12 months, District 2’s CEC handed a decision calling on the town to rethink its sports activities coverage for transgender college students. On the time, then-Chancellor David Banks condemned the proposal as “despicable.”
Healy felt that Aviles-Ramos ought to have explicitly talked about transgender college students and up to date assaults on their rights to take part in sports activities in school, given the rhetoric of the Trump administration, in addition to his personal neighborhood training council.
“Persons are attempting to query the existence and the rights of scholars to be their genuine selves via this purple herring of a difficulty,” he mentioned, ”and by not taking a stand, I feel she simply sort of lets them try this.”
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter overlaying New York Metropolis. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.