COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A Colorado school district is refusing to agree to mediation with the family of a transgender girl who wants to return to school.
Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 officials are refusing to comment on a complaint filed by the New York-based Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. The complaint was filed on behalf of Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, claiming that 6-year-old Coy Mathis has been discriminated against.
Coy MathisAP
Since kindergarten, Coy has worn girls’ clothing to school, and her classmates and teachers have used female pronouns to refer to her and she has used the girls’ bathrooms, just like any other girl in her school.
But since December, Eagleside Elementary School officials have told Coy’s parents that she can no longer use the female facilities and ordered Coy to use the boys’ or nurse’s restroom.
The TLDEF says the school’s action violates the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination against transgender students in public schools.
Coy’s parents have since removed her from school and are home schooling her until the complaint is resolved.
“By forcing Coy to use a different bathroom than all the other girls, Coy’s school is targeting her for stigma, bullying and harassment,” said Michael Silverman, TLDEF’s executive director, and one of Coy’s lawyers.
The district has until March 17 to respond to the commission complaint.
Filed under: Colorado
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Good! Maybe a good old fashioned money grubbing lawsuit that the school district will lose will change their minds.
Well, they can either agree or lawyers can step in.
HTF can a school in Colorado – 1 of the most noted places in the US for gender reassignment sx, be so fuc*ing narrow-minded?
They’re being a–holes and rejecting it but we’re getting there.
she is 6 years old and has been using the girls restroom since kindergarten and now they have a problem with it. That is definitely a lawsuit. She is a girl and should be able to use the same restroom as other girls.
The school is in the wrong. They’re violating anti-descrimination laws.
Ridiculous!
STOP the BS put her on national !
Sue the pants off of the school system.
Aww =(, that is bs…
The school is violating the anti-discrimination law plus she deserves to be treated as a girl since she identifies as one
If the child has boy parts, the child uses a boys restroom. At 6 yrs old, they are too young to have made a cognitive decision about their gender … They barely recognise that boys wear pants and girls wear dresses … stop putting adult issues onto the shoulders of a child.
this is crazy. this little girl is only 6 years old. she went through 3 months of the school year before the school district made this ridiculous decision! what’s the problem?! obviously none of the other kids had a problem
Im not being sarcastic when i say this but I think its absolutely right when they saying “By forcing Coy to use a different bathroom than all the other girls, Coy’s school is targeting her for stigma, bullying and harassment” its making the school responsible for their actions and how it can effect the outlook of children. If an adult is irrational towards a child then another will act so to that same person.
In kindergarten, most of the kids are using a unisex bathroom one at a time anyways. Or a stall. The girls room is appropriate since everyones parts are kept private in stalls, as they should be.
What is the big freakin deal about who uses which restroom anyway? Unless you have people peeking into stalls. Then you have a much bigger problem than that anyway.
Many if not most folks born transsexual knew their true gender by the time they were 2 – 4 years old and articulated that. They usually express themselves with “I am a girl!” (or boy in the case of trans boys), where kids who aren’t trans tend to say “I wish I was a girl” or “I want to become a girl”.
The reason most cis folks can’t comprehend that is because for them, there was no incongruence at that age… so they did not have any awareness of something not being right, because they didn’t have people telling them they were something other than what they knew themselves to be.
There is no logical (nor lawful) reason for the school to discriminate against Coy.
We’re talking about very young children here. It
^^i agree nuala
Dear God, if we get any more what I’ll call “gender sensitive” in this country, some nut will insist newborn babies in hospital nurseries have private rooms to have their diapers changed, lest one gender be exposed in view of the other. By the time this kid and the others in the same class begin to enter puberty and exhibit meaningful gender differences, I would imagine this kid will have sorted out who he or she really is. For the time being, leave it alone folks! This is a 6 year old who, I’m sure, will eventually be able to clearly and adequately express true gender identity. This is a bit early to be worrying about it. Let things naturally develop without any outside influences to conflate the issue.
Poor kid, I can imagine the kind of bullying she’d get using the boy’s bathroom,
And in the meantime I would enroll her in a different school.
@ Deidre. I knew I was a girl when I was 4 years old. Caused me a lot of depression and anxiety over a lot of years because no one else would see it.
Why would anyone want to hurt a child this way? Imagine the six year old girl that you know who is closest to you. Then try to imagine yourself forcing her to use the men’s room.
@Deidre… if gender is such a “non-issue” for kids this age (in your, ummm, opinion) then why,exactly, is it a problem to just let her use the bathroom that she is comfortable in?
Also, Deidre, dear… I’m just curious, at what age did you make your “cognitive decision” about your gender? Was it before or after your “cognitive choice” to be an ass-hole?
Screw it! Have her use a bucket in the classroom & blow everyone’s minds. Then the teacher or the members of the school board can rotate turns dumping it & cleaning it.
Fuxache ! It’s going potty, not a friggin’ flashlight party. What goes on in the stall stays in the stall!
the school district is violating federal laws but while Secretary Arne Duncan sent this letter to ever state education department he refuses to enforce the laws http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201010.pdf
Duncan would rather see that little girl forced to drop out of school and be home schooled than demand that the school district follow the law
So many people commenting do not understand the subject on which they are attempting to comment. Gender does not equal sex. Sex is not an indicator of gender. Gender can be fluid, it can change over time. Sex, obviously, does not.
People do not (usually) make “cognitive decisions” about their gender – sorry Deidre, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. The gender with which one identifies most if a product of subconscious preferences, conditioning, and identification.
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I agree Deidre. When I was this child’s age I desperately wanted to be a boy, went around the streets pretending I was Huckleberry Finn. If my parents were accommodating like this child’s parents, I wouldn’t be a wife and Mother today. At 6 years old, how can they know this?
At five years old I was gay and it took me over 9 years before I could finally admit it to myself. Came out freshman year at age 14 still Gay as I was back when I was five years of age. Back then I was forced to follow the norms such as like girls, even though again at five I liked this guy he was a friend of mine I just remember he had the prettiest blue eyes back then… 15 came out to family.. 17 grandparents finally understood its just not a face.. At the age of 20 now… I wish I didnt have to be forced to conform to the norms of society, to pretend to like girls when i was that age..
I think in some cases you just know, I was one of the individuals that just knew.
You can’t know what it feels like to be a girl unless you are born with female body parts and all the hormones that come with it. At 6 years old this child is assuming what it feels like to be a girl.
Actually Id say you can its possible. I mean everyone happens now at the age of 10-12 of who you are Americans at the very least are hitting that puberty age quicker. IF the parents are forcing their son/daughter this way then it is wrong, but if that individual feels this way Im fine with the individual to wait til 16-18 for a legal operatiom but we have to be caring and say we all need things to work out and schools failure to mediation is just unreal.