Transgender students will have the right to choose whether to play on boys or girls sports teams under the Greater Victoria school district’s new gender identity policy.
The policy, adopted this week, also calls for at least one gender-neutral bathroom at each school, encourages the use of gender-neutral pronouns and calls for trans-inclusive sex education. It protects students’ rights to dress according to their gender identity and calls for sex and gender identifiers to be removed from class lists.
Seven trustees voted in favour of the policy. Deborah Nohr voted against it and Peg Orcherton left the room before the vote, but later said she would have voted in favour.
“We should never be putting students in a position that feels really untrue to themselves, but this will be a process,” said trustee Jordan Watters, who has championed the policy from its infancy.
“Some teachers have been dividing students on the basis of gender for decades, so this will be a big change and we’ll have to support our teachers [as they adapt].”
Although there haven’t been many cases of transgender students encountering problems with sports teams, Watters said, the policy will lay the groundwork.
“We don’t have students clamouring to compete on the opposite-gender team or anything like that, but we do know that could happen and we want to make sure we are accommodating.”
The policy also calls for the reduction — and, where possible, elimination — of the practice of segregating students on the basis of sex or gender.
That will benefit students who identify as neither male nor female — including, for example, one who reported discomfort every time the gym teacher asked boys to stand on one side and girls on the other.
Jordan Abney, executive director for B.C. School Sports, said the change is consistent with a policy the association has had for several years.
Although some transgender individuals undergo hormone treatment or sex-affirmation surgery, many choose not to. Abney said no concerns have been raised about unfair advantage for trans athletes.
B.C. School Sports rules primarily affect regional and provincial championships.
“We’re happy they’re bringing their policy in alignment with ours and also supporting safe sports and inclusion, which is important to us,” Abney said.
Darren Reisig, president of the Lower Vancouver Island School Sports Association and a teacher at Claremont Secondary School, said he hasn’t had to handle such a request.
But more than a decade ago, there were some requests by boys or girls to play on the opposite-sex teams. In one case, a boy wanted to play on the girls field hockey team, because there was no boys team. Several girls also played on the boys rugby team, before there was a girls team, he said.
In those cases, it was a matter of working closely with staff and parents to ensure student safety — which would be the same with transgender students, he said.
“I think most teachers and professionals are more than aware and accepting of the fact that there are students in our buildings who are transgender,” Reisig said. “As teachers, we deal with it. As coaches, I think it would be the same.”
He said the Lower Vancouver Island School Sports Association defers to provincial policy.
Watters, meanwhile, said the policy is about more than its specific measures — it’s about encouraging inclusive thinking and behaviour that will benefit students beyond those who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming.
“Everyone is focusing on the bathrooms and sports teams, but this is bigger than that: This is a paradigm shift. That’s why there will be no magic wand — it will be a process.”
This story has been corrected to reflect the following information: Greater Victoria school trustee Peg Orcherton left a board meeting before a vote on a gender identity policy because of illness. She says she would have voted in favour of the policy, which passed in a vote of 7-1.
