Transgender teachers! ahhhh tolerance, equality, knowledge!

So I was sitting here thinking to myself... are transgender folks allowed to be teachers... I mean of course yes, but does it happen often and are they protected from hatred from parents and administration. With that thought I went straight to google and typed in "transvestite teachers" and came across this great website, exposing bigoted point of views on this subject. I understand that our society lays a heavy blanket of responsibility on teachers to be a good role model of society, but does sexuality choices have to be considered a bad trait of character, and if so what are we saying to our children? "Hey Billy, you like to wear dress's, you can never be a teacher, hell, you can never be a good citizen." Now I know of course this isn't the case all over, but being an educator one may come across such situations.

While I was researching more on this subject I came across a great, positive article about a male teacher making the transition over summer break to become the gender that they have felt more suiting. The support given to this teacher has been very inspiring to me, it also reminded me of my field work this semseter. I got a chance to see tolerance of all sorts be practiced, there were signs and stickers spread throughout the whole school on sexual tolerance, and a lot of gay couples holding hands just like the rest of the high school couples. I mean, when I went to high school, I was lucky to be in a small, mostly tolerant school, where there were not any hate crimes against those of different sexual orientations, but I do know it exists. The next article I talk about I think will allow the reader to really see the differences between Europe and USA.

Here's another article about a teacher in California. The information I find interesting in this article is the fact that the school protected the teachers right to privacy. This is comforting to me that this is apart of teachers rights. Something I've noticed with field work is that students are constantly asking questions about your life, and if you live in the same town as the school you work at, you see students all the time and their family. This can put you in weird positions, just like stated in the first paragraph, society really expects you to be the best role model to our future. It reminds me of a story a professor told me once, about when she was working in an elementary school and lived in the same town as she worked. One night she decided her and girl friends were going to go out drinking, so they all got dressed up in the Friday hot dresses, and go out to drink and dance. While the night ended they were heading back home and the D.D that was driving got pulled over for some reason. The cop that pulled them over was one of her students father, and she was dressed to the nines in heels and a short skirt. She said she was mortified, and the policemen was uncomfortable, and it's all just so vulnerable. So to know the school and government understands how vulnerable our lives become, it's nice to know we have a right to keep some aspects of our lives secret. The one thing that bothers me about this article in particular though, is that that teacher didn't want his students to know what was going on. I mean this seems like a good opportunity to display her good role modeling and practice communication and honesty. Show courage and comfort in his decisions, and to prove that what is happening is not wrong.

op! just found a great debate on this subject. Love when the Andrea talks about school being for the children! Of course it's for the children, that's why we should be honest and truthful about all types of people, and show that everyone deserves to do a good job at what they love doing. Allison says repeatably that we should no discriminate people for what they look or what they do outside of their jobs, but by how they preform their job. This to me is perfect, can I severly mentally ill person do their job so well to the point they are the favorite teacher within the school (Like the article about the teacher in Essex). This debate was discussed two years ago, so I'm interested to know whats going on now with this situation.

So it seems that it's still the same, but becoming more tolerant. There seems to be a good mix between teachers AND student teachers being fired or forced out of some schools, but not all. I still feel it has to do with the district and/or state. I did find this great scientific article about how having a transgender teacher within a school, you are exposing and teaching the students about tolerance and equality. What a surprise...