colorado springs school district grants anti-discrimination protection to transgendered students

[fizzgig]

Rhetoric ran convoluted and dense at last night's Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education meeting. The board's discussion, which concerned a proposed revision to the district's anti-discrimination policy to explicitly protect gender expression and transgender students from various forms of bullying, occasionally became highly technical — or veered off-topic entirely. Although an unvoiced political dimension seemed to overshadow some of the conversation, the result was what Shawna Kemppainen, executive director of Inside Out Youth Services, called "a great outcome."

And to be sure, the motion passed, but not without a lengthy and sometimes tense discussion on its wording, and what it did and did not include.

The successful motion will change the first paragraph of Policy AC: Nondiscrimination/Equal Opportunity to the following, with the new addition in bold:

The Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education [...] is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination in relation to race, creed, color, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender identity, and gender expression [...]

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[William769]

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