SOUTH DEERFIELD — Facing both a state legislative and a presidential push to expand protections for transgender people, many local schools will soon find themselves figuring out how to make their its restrooms and other facilities gender-neutral.
At least one Franklin County school, Frontier Regional in South Deerfield, has already taken the first steps down that road.
Last winter, the school took two of its single-room staff restrooms and turned them into a pair of gender-neutral restrooms.
Principal Darius Modestow said the change was made based on the needs of some of the school’s current students and out of foresight for future students or current students who haven’t made their preference known who may feel more comfortable having such an option.
“It’s just being supportive,” he said. “Sometimes you just don’t know. Those who are questioning (their gender identity) may not feel comfortable using either. Some may say nothing and go the whole day without using the restroom. Hearing that, we decided to take action.”
The move comes amid a controversial national debate sparked in part by a bill in North Carolina barring transgender people from using restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates, among other restrictions.
That legislation triggered a backlash, prompting the Obama administration to sue the state over the issue. The state has sued back.
Then the Obama administration last week ordered every public school district in the country to allow students to use their preferred facility, and the Massachusetts Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would strengthening protections for transgender people if signed into law.
Modestow said high school is a particularly crucial time to create a safe facility for all students, since it’s the time many are going through puberty. That can be challenging enough as it is, he said.
“It can get confusing, and this makes it a little easier,” Modestow said.
Locker rooms, Modestow said, may prove a bit more of a challenge, since the school does not have a third locker room and would not be able to easily construct one. He said some of the school’s staff and athletic directors attended a training in April on the topic, but that consideration will be handled on a case-by-case basis, developing a plan alongside the student that works for them.
“The hard part is that you don’t know some of them are having these struggles,” he said. “How do you go about creating a gender-neutral building so that they don’t have them?”