son's external presentations and behaviors (gender expression) related to en she was only 13 and soon began to appear as one in school this year when classes started in August. The 17-year-old Hillsboro High School senior wears fashionable skirts, makeup and a long blonde wig styled with an assortment of bobby pins. She even started using the girls' locker room to change for gym class, despite the school's desperate offer of a single-occupancy restroom. (McCoppin 1).
In less than two weeks time, however, it became quite clear Lila was certainly not welcomed in the locker room. Due to Perry's has male anatomy, many students simply saw her as a boy in a blonde wig changing in the girls' locker room -- and that made them very uncomfortable. They whispered horrible things about her in the hallways, complained to faculty and told their parents, who brought it up at the school board meeting on August 27. In a petition read aloud, one concerned parent asked the board to stop extending privileges to 'confused teenagers who want to be something they are not sexually' at other student's' expense(McCoppin 1). These concerned parents need to be educated to the realization that gender identity does not mean gender confusion. Acceptance and compassion within the parents and faculty will clear the path for the rest of the students to accept and respect their transgender classmates.
Parental support impacts gender identity and acceptance in more ways than imaginable. Parents have a very powerful role to play in a gender-expansive youth's life. Research has shown that supportive parenting can significantly affect children's' positive outlook on their lives, their mental health and their self-esteem. On the other hand, rejecting parenting practices are directly related to gender-expansive and transgender youth being more depressed and suicidal. Research also shows that the most crucial thing parents can do is to allow children to be exactly who they are.