This happened late last month, and kind of got lost in the Harvey fallout.
Ruby Polanco
A year after Ruby Polanco first noticed that the San Antonio Independent School District’s non-discrimination statement for students and employees didn’t mention gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation, the 17-year-old won her first policy victory.
Polanco submitted a petition and spoke to SAISD’s board of trustees, which voted unanimously last week to add those categories.
“It’s a matter of protection and equal education and safety for all, especially the district’s most vulnerable members,” Polanco told the board. “What makes discrimination based on other factors more significant than discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation?”
Not counting Twitter, it was Polanco’s first foray into advocacy — but she isn’t done. The Young Women’s Leadership Academy senior is contacting other school districts around the state and urging them to make the same changes.
“I want to do more for those districts where students are still left out of those statements,” Polanco said.
[…]
SAISD’s non-discrimination statements already prohibited gender-based discrimination against students or employees, and its non-discrimination policy for students included an explanation that gender-based harassment included “conduct based on the student’s gender, the student’s expression of characteristics perceived as stereotypical for the student’s gender, or the student’s failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.” The policy gave examples of gender-based harassment “regardless of the student’s or the harasser’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Even with that definition, Polanco said, districts need to be more specific as times change.
“Without that language, it can be interpreted different ways,” she said. “If a transgender girl had applied to our school before, it would be a question, but now it’s a reassurance: You will not be discriminated against.”
SAISD’s official statement is here. The updated policy was adopted on August 21, but it wasn’t until last week at the subsequent board meeting that the conservative backlash began in earnest. There’s nothing new here under the sun – the same tiresome lies are being used against the policy by the usual assortment of liars and the rabble they are able to rouse with those lies – but if we’ve learned anything from the HERO fight, it’s that one cannot sleep on this cacophony. So please, my friends and fellow travelers in San Antonio, get organized and be prepared for whatever campaign activity these jokers have planned. And please make sure Ruby Polanco gets all the support she needs to keep doing what she’s doing. We need more like her.