© 2024 Interlochen
CLASSICAL IPR | 88.7 FM Interlochen | 94.7 FM Traverse City | 88.5 FM Mackinaw City IPR NEWS | 91.5 FM Traverse City | 90.1 FM Harbor Springs/Petoskey | 89.7 FM Manistee/Ludington
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Coverage from across Michigan and the state Capitol with the Michigan Public Radio Network and Interlochen Public Radio.

We've Got Issues: Advocate for transgender students defends state guidelines

Supporters of transgender rights are responding to Republican attacks on proposed  guidelines for school districts in Michigan.

“[The guidelines are] really all about creating a safe and supporting learning environment for all Michigan students,” says attorney Jay Kaplan of the ACLU of Michigan. Kaplan worked on writing the recommendations.

Kaplan spoke to IPR News Radio about the policy statement the state Board of Education will soon be asked to vote on:

Among other guidelines, the statement says transgender students should be able to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as and be able to choose their name.

The statement also says that schools should not tell parents about any changes if the student does not want them to know. This recommendation has attracted the fiercest opposition from Republican lawmakers in the state legislature, but Jay Kaplan says it’s necessary.

“Sometimes it takes time for parents to fully accept and embrace their children,” Kaplan says. “And sometimes by disclosing that piece of information, it could be harmful to that child and to that child’s safety.”

Kaplan says the guidelines were created because Michigan educators have demanded help dealing with LGBT issues in schools in recent years.

State Rep. Triston Cole of Antrim County called the recommendations “a step too far” in an interview with IPR News Radio earlier this week.

“There’s two genders. There’s men and there’s women. There’s girls and there’s boys,” Cole said in the interview. “That’s how God designed us.”

Kaplan says he’s disappointed in some of the comments made by legislators.

“I think it represents clearly a misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender,” Kaplan says.