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A California art high school makes its LGBT-friendly attitude official.
“I was one of only six ‘out’ students at my public high school,” admits Zac Hewitt.
Zac, who worked in Admissions and College Counseling during three years at Idyllwild Arts Academy, lets that sink in.
“I wasn’t always sure I would make it. But Idyllwild has an incredibly welcoming and progressive environment. I’ve never seen a student here bullied for being gay or trans. We’ve had boys in full drag as prom queens!”
The chance to direct the College Counseling Department at another Southern California independent high school took Zac away from Idyllwild after the 2015–2016 school year. Yet he helped complete some vital work before leaving, as one of over a dozen members of the Gender and Sexuality Committee that translated the Academy’s persistent unofficial inclusiveness into official policy.
The committee was chaired by Head of School Dr. Douglas Ashcraft (who has since stepped down in order to pursue his first love, classical piano teaching and performance).
“Through our research into gender,” he explains, we’ve “come to believe students are best served if allowed to choose housing options according to their gender identity.”
The policy recently approved by the school’s Board of Governors defines gender identity as one’s “internal sense of who one is, being a man or woman, girl or boy, or between or beyond these genders.” Obviously, internal sense — the consciousness of who one is — might not correspond to biological sex.
Dr. Ashcraft has spelled out some consequences in a letter to parents:
“Through our research into gender,” he explains, we’ve “come to believe students are best served if allowed to choose housing options according to their gender identity.”
The policy recently approved by the school’s Board of Governors defines gender identity as one’s “internal sense of who one is, being a man or woman, girl or boy, or between or beyond these genders.” Obviously, internal sense — the consciousness of who one is — might not correspond to biological sex.
Dr. Ashcraft has spelled out some consequences in a letter to parents:
“Students and their parents will have the option of requesting such accommodation on the housing questionnaire that Idyllwild Arts will send to determine housing assignments. In the case of a transgender student requesting accommodation corresponding to their gender identity, students and parents of the potential roommate will be asked to sign a consent form before this accommodation is granted.”
The official policy is more comprehensive:
“With respect to all restrooms, changing facilities, and dormitories, students shall be allowed to choose facilities that correspond to their gender identity.”
The research Dr. Ashcraft mentions carried the Gender and Sexuality Committee far beyond the bounds of boarding-school life. Zac touches on some of that.
“We looked at the high suicide and homelessness rates in the LGBT community and the high rates of violence against transgender women of color. But our students want to change the world, and school is a good place to start.”
The committee’s members, who included current students as well as faculty and staff members, took deep satisfaction in Board approval of the following article of school policy:
“Every student has the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that corresponds to the student’s gender identity. It is strongly recommended that teachers privately ask transgender or gender nonconforming students at the beginning of the school year how they want to be addressed in class, in correspondence to the home, or at conferences with the student’s parent or guardian.”
A grammatical structure already exists for talking about someone without referring to gender. You could hear, “I’m going to meet my friend for coffee,” and ask, “When do they expect you?”
You might trip over the next step: saying, for example, “Dance is the love of Jason’s life; they fell in love with it as a child at The Nutcracker.” But if you’re old enough, you remember the difficulty of getting yourself to say “Ms.”
Still, accustoming people to change requires education, and the Idyllwild Arts community is happy to educate. Dr. Ashcraft’s letter to parents promises that “all students” will receive “appropriate education” in “gender issues according to age and grade level” as “part of a robust student life curriculum.”
Supplementary education in gender issues will come from a key member of the Gender and Sexuality Committee, Dr. Karin Obermeier, through her Gender and Sexuality elective for twelfth-graders, introduced in Spring 2016.
Eighteen students, representing ten countries, were “eager to question themselves and their assumptions.” Some questions challenged the “idea that there are only two ways to imagine gender.”
Their questions imply that at Idyllwild, as in all strong educational communities, much of the education will be done by students.
