GOD BLESS THE CHILD

PHOTOS: Transgender 6-Year-Old Is Accepted By Everyone But Her School Board

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The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund has filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division on behalf of a 6-year-old who has been barred from using the girls’ bathrooms at her elementary school.

Coy Mathis (above), a transgender first-grader at Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain, Colorado, has used the girls’ room for over a year. But in December, the school district told Mathis’ parents she would have to use the boy’s room after winter break.

Alternately, they were told, she could use a staff restroom or the bathroom in the nurse’s office.

Mathis, who appeared on Katie this week, has presented as female since she was 18 months old, and has been accepted as a girl by classmates and teachers since she started at Eagleside. She is currently being home-schooled until the issue is resolved.

“We want Coy to return to school to be with her teachers, her friends, and her siblings, but we are afraid to send her back until we know that the school is going to treat her fairly,” said Coy’s mom, Kathryn Mathis. “She is still just six years old, and we do not want one of our daughter’s earliest experiences to be our community telling her she’s not good enough.”

Michael Silverman, TLDEF’s executive director, says the school “has the opportunity to turn this around and teach Coy’s classmates a valuable lesson about friendship, respect and basic fairness.”


Below is a slideshow featuring Coy and the Mathis family. You can donate to help protect the rights of transgender children.

 

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