Alex Wilson is a certified nursing assistant, but she wants to become a licensed practical nurse, so she’s taking classes at Pinellas Technical Education Center. She attended the school with little incident until early July, when she was told she could no longer use the women’s restroom because she was born male.
Wilson has been on hormone replacement therapy for four years but has not yet undergone gender reassignment surgery.
Wilson said she was forced to use an inconvenient storage facility on campus for her restroom needs. But now, the American Civil Liberties Union is involved.
In a letter sent on Aug. 22 to the superintendent of the Pinellas County School Board, the ACLU of Florida stated that the treatment to which Wilson had been subjected amounted to sex discrimination and called for administrators to “grant Alex immediate access to all sex-specific programs, activities, and facilities at PTEC consistent with her gender identity[…]”
Wilson is identified as female on her Florida driver’s license and tried to work with the school to continue using the women’s restroom. The only other option offered to her, she said, was the use of a men’s faculty restroom, for which she would have to approach an administrator for a key each time.
According to the ACLU of Florida, in a following meeting, a school administrator – who referred to Wilson using the male pronoun “he” – told her that if she used the general women’s or men’s room, charges would be pressed against her.
“This is an issue of basic fairness,” said ACLU of Florida LGBT rights attorney Daniel Tilley. “Alex is a hard-working student training to become a healthcare professional, and PTEC administrators had no problem with her until they found out she was a transgender woman. The school says its mission is to provide students opportunities to develop workplace skills. Stigmatizing and humiliating Alex does not advance this goal, and it teaches terrible lessons to future healthcare professionals about how to treat diverse populations.”
The letter sent by the ACLU explains that requiring Wilson to use separate facilities than those used by other students based solely on her gender identity constitutes sex discrimination under Title IX.
“Transgender people are disproportionately confronted with difficulties meeting basic needs like securing a job, finding housing, getting healthcare, or simply having their gender identity respected,” added Tilley. “The fact that PTEC administrators only started treating Alex differently from the other students when they found out she was transgender makes it clear that this is discrimination, plain and simple. We call on Pinellas County to make this right.”
In August, the Pinellas County Commission voted 6-1 to protect transgender residents with its human rights ordinance. That protection, however, does not extend to public schools.
