New Research Debunks Lies About Protections for Transgender Students

June 10, 2015

June 10, 2015

Over the past several years, states across the country have adopted laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. Along with these state laws, in 2014 the U.S. Department of Education issued a guidance clarifying that transgender students are protected from discrimination under Title IX. 

Despite these laws and guidance, Media Matters for America found that various conservative media outlets have promoted myths that policies protecting transgender students "create confusion, violate students' privacy rights, and can be exploited by students who will pretend to be transgender in order to sneak into the restrooms for the opposite sex."

Media Matters decided to test these harmful myths, and contacted officials at the largest school districts in 12 states with gender identity protections on the books. They asked them if they had experienced "any incidences of harassment or inappropriate behavior" as a result of "allowing transgender students to access facilities they're comfortable with." 

After interviewing 17 school districts covering 600,000 students, they found that not one school reported any incidents of harassment or inappropriate behavior after implementing transgender nondiscrimination policies. In fact, many of the school districts praised their policies as success stories, as seen by this quote from Boston Public Schools:

"While there is state law and a district non-discrimination policy that protects all of our students from and against discrimination and harassment, we are most proud of our work with schools and external partners over the past two years to deepen our capacity to proactively meet the needs of our GLBT students."

From this report, we can see that the myths about transgender protections for students just are not true in places that have these protections. In reality, the protections benefit the school districts by making them more inclusive spaces for all students.

 

 

More You might like

Equality Federation Accountability and Commitment to Conference Accessibility

Equality Federation acknowledges and deeply apologizes for perpetuating the systemic harm and exclusion of disabled people at our 2025 Leadership Conference.

June 12, 2025
Equality Federation Adds Alexis Sanchez and Vincent Paolo Villano to Senior Leadership Team

We are pleased to announce the addition of two effective and experienced leaders to our senior leadership team!

June 12, 2025
National Coalition of HIV, LGBTQ+ and Health Advocates Applauds Court Decision Upholding Law that Ensures Access to PrEP and other Healthcare Preventive Services

In response to the Supreme Court decision on the Braidwood case today, June 27, a national coalition released the following statement from the Executive Directors of Lambda Legal, PrEP4All, the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, the Center for HIV Law and Policy, and Equality Federation.

June 12, 2025
A young man looking up, smilingA young man smiling straight at the camera
Confident young woman standing with crossed arms.

Want To Make A Difference? Support Our Work

With your support, we'll be able to continue our work to build the leaders of today and tomorrow, strengthen state-based LGBTQ+ organizations, and make critical progress on the issues that matter most—like protecting transgender people, ending HIV criminalization and ensuring access to care, and banning conversion therapy across the country.