"About two weeks into school a website was published on a Facebook, MySpace type of thing outing me," said Difraia, who said she does not know who created the page. "They created a site saying I was a lesbian, had tons of pictures on it, [and they] Photoshopped some of them. I don’t even know how they got all the pictures. ... Then in school I was in my English class and I think the third week, or fourth week, the people in my class started making fun of me, saying names. All the girls in class started saying stuff."
When she complained Difraia said the teacher reprimanded the harassers and gave them detention. But the harassment only escalated as the school year wore on. Difraia said girls would continue to harass and taunt her in and out of class, and boys asked her lewd questions about the mechanics of lesbian sex. Soon the attacks turned physical, and they took their toll.
"If I was outside they’d push me, shove me. If I was by myself people would try to get near me and do stuff. As time went on I was very much depressed. I was suicidal at home because I was trying to figure out what was going on," said Difraia. On the home front her parents were supportive, which is not surprising given that Difraia grew up with two moms. But Difraia’s outing coincided with her parents’ divorce, and she said they did not know the full extent of the harassment. But the mother with whom she lived knew that something was wrong when Difraia began skipping school. Difraia racked up more than 100 absences, and officials called her and her mother in to discuss the situation. Difraia said she and her mother asked the school to step in and take action against the harassers, but school officials told them there was little they could do. (Wakefield High Principal Elinor Freedman did not return a call to comment for this story.)
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WaWa
Pa. Student Decides To Make Gender Change
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― It is extremely rare for a child to decide that he or she wants to change gender, but it has happened at a local elementary school.CBS 3's Stephanie Abrams spoke with school officials who say they view this as a private matter and are very concerned for the child's safety.In order to protect the privacy and safety of the child in question, we are not revealing the child's age, or the location of the school. We are also not identifying the parents we spoke with so as not to reveal which school the child attends.The children and parents at the elementary school say they're learning a lot about gender identity. It's defined as "the internal sense of feeling feminine or masculine, not always congruent with biological gender."The lesson is very real for the young students since a classmate they knew as a boy, now comes to school in dresses and has taken a girl's name. The child is considered transgender.One parents we spoke with said, "I as a parent would not feel comfortable with it and would not allow my child to make that decision so early."The child's parents told the school they felt it was the only decision they could make. Although there's outrage on the town blog, we found most parents in the district very understanding. One father said, "I don't see it as being a big issue. It's part of modern society now."A woman whose son knows the transgender child explained how she discussed it at home saying, "We did talk about it at home, I explained to Matt sometimes people are born into the wrong bodies."In a letter sent to parents, school officials advised a discussion at home and said, "We are taking steps to become educated about transgender children and how to meet their needs in the school environment."Most parents are impressed with how the school handled it. People we interviewed said, "I think it's being handled good that all the parents were alerted." Another mother said, "I'm amazed that such a young fellow would know at such a young age that he would like to change who he is and I'm proud of him for doing that."The children and parents in the district have been accepting of the transgender child's choices, and are doing their best to help make the transition into a little girl, as normal for her as possible.Gender specialist Michele Angello says children become aware of their gender identity way before puberty. The average age is five. So when there's a conflict, it's not a sexual issue. It's a medical problem. "It's more about the hardwiring in the person's brain, not about their anatomy. It's more the neurological aspects of how their brain is hardwired in utero," Angello said.For more information on transgender children you can go to the Web site for TransYouth Family Allies.
The Bilerico Project
Would somebody please thinkof the children?
One of the silliest arguments that the Religious Right uses to keep us down is the "Children just can't deal with homosexuality/transsexuality/gay culture/drag queens/queer PDA at their age - their minds just aren't ready for it."
It's silly because it's simply untrue - kids just see it, and, like most things adults do, ignore it and integrate it into their idea of "normal." That's what the righters are really worried about - that kids will stop thinking of this whole thing as such a big deal.
So when this story broke about how a school near Philadelphia was going to have a convocation for all its third-graders to talk about transgender tolerance (there's a 9-year-old at that school who's trans), the same-old rhetoric began pouring out. But all it does is show that those adults are less ready for these discussions than their kids are.
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