Catholic school reconsiders transgender student ban

[Ayla]

ncronline.org/news/people/catholic-school-reconsiders-transgender-student-ban  

A Catholic school in Rhode Island says it is open to reversing a controversial policy that denies transgender students admission -- if it can get help providing "reasonable accommodations."
Woonsocket's private Mount Saint Charles Academy "is unable to make accommodations for transgender students," the school handbook states. "Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender."

Critics of the ban responded by crowdfunding more than $5,000 to educate faculty on LGBT issues and create safe spaces for transgender students in locker rooms and bathrooms. YouthPride, a local LGBT support group, offered to help inform the school on best practices for accommodating transgender students.

After the community backlash, the school "has been exploring ways in which it might provide reasonable accommodations for transgender students," officials said in an apologetic statement on March 4. "Please know that we would very much like to address the issue, and your prayers and kind assistance would go a long way in allowing us achieve that goal."

Alumni have vocally denounced the ban on transgender students, which the school says has been in effect since October 2015 but only drew attention this year. More than 1,700 people have signed an online petition by a Facebook group of alumni organizing against the ban.

"The dialogue has been thoughtful -- albeit pointedly critical -- from former students who are frustrated and often now embarrassed to carry that label," Dan Appenfeller, who graduated from the school in 2010, wrote in the Providence Journal. "Policies like the one on transgender students have no place in a community that preaches acceptance and love."

[Shan]

Good article! Always very pleasing to see a change in venue by the old guard who had been ignorant. Guess they considered the potential repair expenses when cherry bomb fireworks are lit and flushed down the toilets!
 

[Deleted]

A Catholic school in Rhode Island says it is open to reversing a controversial policy that denies transgender students admission -- if it can get help providing "reasonable accommodations."

Now I'm busting my little brain here to try and think of the "reasonable accommodations" the little town I live in had to make when I came out.

E.g., did my favorite supermarket order in a "transgender trolley" for me to put my purchases in?  Well, no, I just continued using the usual sort.

What about my favorite café?  Did they provide some special "transgender coffee cups"?  No, I just kept on using the old ones.  Of course, they had to start washing off the lipstick I left on them.  I suppose that's an accommodation.  But I think it's reasonable.

And then at the library they had to switch my account over to my new name.  That didn't seem to overly tax them, though.  Nobody was asking for days off after all that hard work.

That's pretty much the way it's gone.  Nobody's ever got their knickers in a twist about it.

I will tell you, though, when somebody had to make all sorts of accommodations that they considered extremely unreasonable: when people often referred to these days as "proto-orthodox Christians", eventually known as "Catholics", started demanding recognition in the Roman Empire.  That was a fair bit of a change.

I'd like to hear Nero say, "Well, of course, I'd like to reverse my controversial policy of persecuting Christians--if I can get help providing "reasonable accommodations".

Time goes by, and we forget.

[Shan]

Snarky Irish Lass, have a few Guinness's on me dear!