Recently, a high school student told me she was terrified to go back to school. “I know,” I responded, “it’s hard to feel safe with Covid and the Delta variant and everything.”

“Oh, it’s not Covid — it’s the other students and the teachers,” she told me. “I had gotten so used to virtual school and not having to deal with everyone misgendering me and devaluing me, and I’m scared to go back to seeing everyone in person.”

This fall, transgender students must contend with environments that are often explicitly hostile, anti-trans and exclusionary. They have returned to buildings without appropriate and safe bathrooms and locker rooms, in defiance of federal guidelines. They may have teachers who refuse to use their names and pronouns and classmates who make anti-trans comments under their breath.

Those who are Black, indigenous, students of color, disabled or undocumented may encounter in-person surveillance and exclusionary discipline policies that limit their access to equitable education.

This return may be especially painful now because many of these students thrived with remote schooling.

In order to support all our students — and especially our trans, nonbinary and genderqueer students — teachers and administrators need to learn lessons from remote education and enact policies and conduct trainings that build equity into their school buildings.

Schools need to ensure that our students are welcomed, affirmed and included. Our students can’t be expected to learn in hostile, dehumanizing environments.

Read the full article about transgender student safety by Robert A. Marx at The Hechinger Report.