Weekly Reflection# 6

For week 8, we had a short group presentation to give an overview of our POD assignments. For my group we chose to focus on the impact of social media on transgender students. We felt that this isn’t something that is talked about enough and is very important due to recent events in Tumbler Ridge.

For the assignment I focused on How can we support students who are struggling with gender identity and what tools can we implement? I felt this was important because of the friends I have had who didn’t feel supported when I was in high school. Some that I didn’t even know that they were questioning their gender till a few years ago and that they had already transitioned. At this point in my research I had found an article talking about some basics you can do to help students questioning their identity. The main things were helping them with different bathroom accommodations if needed, different uniforms and outfits, finding a trusted adult in the school for the student and, if they desire it, changing their name and/or pronouns in the school system. I also talked to my classmate who identifies as non-binary. They helped me by telling me some of things they did have and a lot more things they didn’t have. One of the things they told me their teacher did was at the beginning of the year the teacher handed out a survey to find out about the students. This survey included pronouns and preferred names as well as a spot to list who the student would like you to tell or not tell. This might be their parents, another teacher, front office staff and so on. Though I won’t be getting into it here I am aware that there is a lot of controversy over not telling parents if a student is asking about their gender/deciding to transition. I don’t know enough yet to give definite answer or state my full stance but I know that if there is evidence their could be real repercussion to the parents knowing, abuse to the student, kicking the student out, I’m confident in those situation I would keep the secret.