Defense school officials have agreed to allow an 11-year-old transgender student to use the girls' restroom at a Defense Department school in Germany, reversing a previous decision to band the child from that restroom.
And after the intervention of a DoD official, all transgender students in Department of Defense Education Activity Schools will be allowed to use the restroom with which they identify.
As a result of a meeting Friday between the chief of staff of the Department of Defense Education Activity and Todd Weiler, assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, "the transgender girl is allowed to use the restroom as of today," DoDEA spokesman Frank O'Gara said in a Monday interview.
The policy will apply to all transgender students in DoDEA, O'Gara said.
The child of a military member had been barred from using the girls' restroom at Ramstein Intermediate School by the district superintendent, Elizabeth Dunham, who reversed a previous ruling by the school's principal to allow the student to use it. School officials had sent a letter to parents of children in the child's class in late September outlining how they would support the child's transition, then sent a follow-up email saying the student would begin using the girls' room, according to an initial report of the incident by NBC News, which reported the latest reversal Saturday.
The 11-year-old's mother told NBC that her child is "terrified" of using the boys' restroom and would have to go down three floors, leave the building and cross the courtyard to another building to use a gender-neutral restroom.
O'Gara said Dunham provided guidance to the principal to instead stay with the existing DoDEA procedures, pending new guidance which is expected from DoDEA. The current procedure was to arrange for transgender students to use a gender-neutral restroom, and no student had challenged that until now, O'Gara said.
On July 29, DoDEA director Thomas Brady sent a memo to principals and superintendents informing them he had formed a civil rights working group to look at existing policies and regulations "to ensure that they address access, fairness, respect, privacy and safety for all DoDEA students, including transgender students."
There is no timeline yet for the completion of the work; the working group will build a timeline in conjunction with Weiler's guidance, O'Gara said. The working group has solicited feedback from teachers and principals; it is not known whether they will solicit feedback from parents and students. "We know these working groups take a long time, but it's also important to look at what other school systems are doing," O'Gara said.
"We knew this was an important issue we had to address," O'Gara said. "We are committed to making sure students feel safe and secure in our schools, and that they're not harassed. That's really important to us and we're going to make that happen."
On May 13, the Education and Justice departments issued joint guidance advising school districts to allow students who are transgender to use restroom facilities and other accommodations consistent with their gender identity. At that time DoDEA officials told Military Times they are reviewing their practices for supporting transgender students.
Karen Jowers covers military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times. She can be reached at kjowers@militarytimes.com .
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
