Jamestown School Superintendent Tim Mains during Tuesday night’s presentation on Transgender students. Mains was joined in the presentation by School nurse practitioner Deborah Piotrwoski (standing behind mains).

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown School Board is continuing its effort to settle on a new policy for protecting Transgender Students in the district. On Tuesday night, Superintendent Tim Mains and Jamestown High School nurse practitioner Deborah Piotrowski delivered a presentation addressing the challenges transgender students face.

Pietrowski said there are already students in the district that are transgender.

“We have a few [transgender] students at the high school – some are further along than others, some are linked with appropriate psychologist and psychiatrist, and I have one child who’s already on hormones, so we kind of have the gamut at the high school,” Piotrowski explained during the presentation. “And it’s real. we really do have these children. They are going to exist and they’re going to keep coming up through the ranks. We can’t ignore them and its important that we try to help them navigate through the school system.”

Piotrowski also said its important the district have a policy that not only protects the safety of the transgender students, but also clearly communicates to them what they should know and who they can turn to.

“We have supports for them, but how do they know what those are? How do they know where they are? Who do they ask about them – if they do start to feel depressed or suicidal, or if they are being harassed or being bullied? And it doesn’t mean just in the school – there’s all kinds of social media bullying going on. What happens to these kids? And how can we help them move above that and move beyond that?,” Piotrowski asked rhetorically. “The really important thing is that we keep these kids safe.”

Before the presentation, Southern Tier Trans Network executive director Helen Walther spoke to the board, sharing her own experiences and personal account, as well as encouraging board members to approve an affirming and inclusive policy that protects transgender students, so they wont have to go through the experiences she went through while a student.

Mains said the presentation was the second of three for the board to help members understand the issue better, prior to acting on a policy.

“The state has certainly given us some recommendations about policy, but I felt that before we can start talking about the policy, we should talk about the issue because I think it’s an issue that’s difficult for a lot of us to wrap our heads around,” Mains explained. “We don’t completely understand why it exists but we know it exists. We have transgender students in our schools. So I felt that rather than follow the normal process of [reviewing and discussing] possible policies, I felt it was valuable for us to spend some time thinking about the issue, trying to get a deeper understanding and appreciation for what some of the challenges our transgender students experience, before we start to wrestle with the policy implications that may have.”

Mains also said that the board will likely act on a proposed policy later this school year, perhaps in March or April.

The first Transgender Day of Remembrance was held in Boston in 1999, commemorating the violent death of Rita Hester, a local transgender woman. It has since become an international annual event. Ms. Hester’s murderer has never been brought to justice.

“While we will mourn and remember those who have died due to the undeserved stigma they had to face as transgender people,” Helen Walther, Southern Tier Trans Network’s executive director says, “we more importantly dedicate ourselves to fight against the prejudice and discrimination transgender people suffer under. Trans people are, for all their perceived differences, still more like everyone else than they are different. We deserve the same dignity and respect others expect for themselves.”

St. Luke’s Rector, the Rev. Luke Fodor agrees. “At each baptism service we promise to honor and respect the dignity of every human being.  Sadly, we often forget this promise when we encounter people that are different than we are. When we follow Jesus example, we reach out to those on the margins and those who don’t fit in.” he remarks.  “St Luke’s is delighted to stand alongside the Southern Tier Trans Network to honor those transgender folks who have lost their lives this last year simply for being different.”

The Southern Tier Trans Network is a peer support group for transgender people, their significant others and their allies. It was founded in 2011 and meets in Jamestown. For more information, please visit www.southerntiertrans.org.

The lecture, to be presented in the library’s “Fireplace Room,” has been planned to commemorate the International Day of Transgender Visibility, an annual event designed to educate the communities trans people live in about the lives of transgender people and their contributions to our society.

The lecture will be given by Helen Walther, Southern Tier Trans Network’s Executive director, PFLAG T-net coordinator and co-administrator of a very popular transgender support website, www.susans.org.

“There is too much ignorance and too many stereotypes about who transgender people are, what they do and what they need,” she says. “The need for more education geared toward non-transgender people is obvious.  We need to eliminate ignorance about transgender people along with the fear and aversion such ignorance generates.”

The lecture will include opportunities for people to ask questions and to knowingly meet, perhaps for the first time, trans people who live in Jamestown and its surroundings.  The public is cordially invited to attend.

The Southern Tier Trans Network is a peer support group for transgender people, their significant others and their allies. It was founded in 2011 and meets in Jamestown.

For more information, email emelye@southerntiertrans.org