Kimberly Shappley is as conservative and Christian as they come.

It was her child who, at just three years of age, would challenge her faith and rock her to the core.
For Shappley and her family, it all began with a hair bow.

“I want a bow like Daisy,” her then-three-year-old son Joseph Paul begged of her. Shappley knew the big red bow, ponytails and princess dresses were things almost every little girl wished for. However, these weren’t for a daughter — Shappley reminded herself these were the requests of her son.

“Please mommy,” Joseph Paul would plead with her.

His desire to dress in little girl’s clothes is a secret Shappley has kept from the outside world since Joseph was just a toddler. As an infant, she put him in blue clothes. As a toddler, she made him do what shes says is ‘typical boy stuff,’ like fishing, playing football with his siblings and throwing little boy’s birthday parties.

“We tried to make this kid be a boy,” said Shappley. Still, Joseph kept seeking out what the girls had and, by the age of three, he was telling everyone he was a girl.

A devout Christian, Shappley prayed while Joseph made shirts into skirts and begged to wear girls underwear — and asked his family to call him by the name of “Kai.”

“This hasn’t happened overnight for us. I am a Christian and I love the Lord,” Shappley said as she struggled with her son’s requests.

The gravity of her son’s pleas became almost too much to bear when she heard Kai praying to die.

“I overheard Kai praying and asking the Lord to please take Joseph home to be with Jesus and I realized Kai’s begging the Lord to let her die,” Shappley said through tears.

As a first step down the path to understanding Kai’s situation, Shappley bought girls underwear for Kai, though it took her three trips to the store to finally purchase them.

“When Kai came home that day and opened the drawer and saw princess panties, she fell down on the floor with the panties, crying and thanking me that this was the best day ever,” Shappley said.

Shappley sought out more help, turning to pastors and her faith. Her hope was that her young boy would act like one.

“So Christians are not gay, OK, that’s the mindset that I had.”

Shappley said faith leaders reassured her God doesn’t make mistakes.

“Christians are not going to have a transgender child, because as a Christian, that goes against everything that we read in scripture,” she said.

Finding Support for Parents of a Transgender Child

Feeling alone and isolated, Shappley dug into social media for help, finding a secret underground Facebook network of more than 2,000 other Christian mothers with transgender children. Shappley says she found support in the stories of other mothers who had faced criticism, some who had even been threatened by those who had vowed to take their children away or kidnap them.

“We knew that, at some point, if someone found out that our child was transgender, that you could put our safety at risk,” Shappley said.

Despite all the risks, acceptance has helped Shappley and Kai. She says her daughter is now thriving.

As for Shappley herself, the Facebook group for Christian parents of transgender youth was just the beginning of her journey to understanding and accepting Kai. Now five years old, Kai will soon enter the public school system in Pearland at the same time schools throughout the country work to meet the demands of an Obama administration directive that says transgender students are to be treated no differently than any other students.

In part two of this report, find out how Kimberly Shappley found herself in the middle of the controversial bathroom debate. Stay tuned to Eyewitness News and abc13.com for the rest of the story.

(Copyright ©2016 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.)

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She’s also transgender.

The girl, as well as her parents and school administrators, agreed to share her story to show how they are grappling with a situation that more and more schools are facing.

The U.S. Department of Education released guidelines Friday to help schools understand how federal law protects the treatment of transgender students on matters such as bathroom use.

The experience of the girl, identified using her first initial, “T,” to protect her privacy, provides a number of lessons, among them: how to train staffers and designate “safe” people on whom a student can depend. Teachers and principals will want to know how to deal with notes like the one that slipped out of T’s homework folder one day: “You’re a boy not a girl get it throu (sic) your head.”

California law reinforces the rights of transgender students to be treated as the gender they identify with, whether in bathrooms or on sports teams. A few other states, including North Carolina, are battling the federal government in an effort to restrict both transgender students’ and adults’ access to these spaces.

There is no official count of the number of transgender children in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But there is a clear sense among those who study gender issues that, nationwide, people are coming out as transgender earlier than in the past.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles saw about 40 transgender and “gender nonconforming” youths a decade ago, says Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development. Now, she says, the center sees about 600 transgender patients between the ages of 3 and 25, T included.

T is normally a confident and chatty third-grader. But discussion of “the note” turns her pensive as she sits in the middle of her bed in a sleeveless orange dress, fiddling with “Liony,” a bright green polka-dot stuffed animal.

“I felt really mad and sad,” she says. Her voice softens. Her head drops. “I feel like a girl, not a boy.”

After T found the note, her mom told her that the student who wrote it is probably insecure, that the note was a reflection on them and not T. They laughed about the misspelling.

That night, the parents called T’s teacher.

T is the first openly transgender student in the school, and her parents and the school’s principal had already met to prepare for such problems.

The school investigated but couldn’t identify the student behind the note. So the teacher held a class discussion about bullying, cowardice and acceptance.

‘I wanted to be a girl one’

The note is one of the very few incidents that have made the girl feel singled out. Both in and out of school, T is self-assured.

She flies around the volleyball court so quickly that one team member’s father calls her “Kite.” Off the court, she’s affectionate and talkative.

But sometimes it’s hard to know what she’s thinking, her parents say, because she’s so eager to convince them she’s safe.

When T says that “everything’s great,” her mother knows to gently nudge her to continue. On occasion, the mother has found, T is actually thinking about how much she dislikes her penis because it reminds her of why people think she’s a boy.

When she was born, the box for “male” was checked because she emerged from the womb with biologically male body parts. She won’t decide whether to change her body until she’s older. She does, however, assert her femininity in other ways.

As a toddler shopping for costumes, T wanted to be a fairy or cheerleader or witch. On play dates, she hung out with girls in play kitchens. T’s mom remembers when she realized it wasn’t just a phase.

T was 4 years old, cradled in her lap. The mother had always enjoyed having her nephews around. She explained to T how excited she had been to learn she was pregnant with a boy baby.

“I wanted to be a girl one, Mama,” T said through quivering lips.

The most common question T’s parents get is why they are letting her transition so early — why not wait until she’s older?

In response, T’s mom cites statistics showing that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children without family support face a higher risk for depression and suicide attempts.

With that in mind, T’s parents started saying “Yes.”

Yes to the sparkly cupcake shirts from the girls section at Target. Yes to the Barbie Dreamhouse.

Still, it was a fine line. Initially, T’s girls’ wardrobe stayed home. Her parents allowed her to wear sparkly tops to kindergarten, but only paired with pants or tights — a rule they used to introduce the subject of bullies.

After T went to bed, her parents would spend hours online, researching what it means to be transgender. They were afraid that she would feel isolated because she didn’t see anyone else like herself.

When T was 6, her dad showed her a 2007 video of Barbara Walters interviewing Jazz Jennings, a transgender YouTube star.

“I have a girl brain and a boy body,” Jennings, then a child, tells Walters.

Jennings shows Walters a picture she drew of herself, crying because she can’t wear a dress to school.

T, her parents saw, clearly identified with Jazz.

In her journal (which T labeled with strict instructions not to read), T’s mom found a picture that T had drawn of herself wearing a purple dress, with long hair.

Her parents knew what they needed to do — which is not to say it was easy.

“You definitely go through a mourning period for the boy you thought you had,” T’s mom says. “At the same time you’re mourning, you’re excited because your kid is so happy to be themselves.”

‘I want to be a she and a her and a sister’

As the number of children who identify as transgender increases, so do the number of places where the changes occur.

Adults may begin to dress differently, act differently, present a different version of themselves at work. For children, school is usually where they show who they are to kids their own age — who, by definition, are just beginning to wrestle with ideas about what’s socially acceptable, what’s “normal.”

T’s transition at school was gradual.

As a second-grader, she came home on the night before a disco-themed after-school dance and said that she wanted to wear a dress to the party.

T often changed into skirts and dresses when she came home, and her parents had been waiting for the day she’d ask to wear one to school.

Before the dance, T changed into the outfit she’d longed to wear: A black-and-blue, almost floor-length dress, framed by bright pink spaghetti straps. Her father shot a photo. She’s beaming.

That evening, she gripped her dad’s hand tighter and tighter as they walked down the hallway to the auditorium. When she finally joined her friends, her dad backed away and stood with the other parents, proud but nervous, he recalls.

T and her friends danced under the disco ball, joyfully tossed and kicked a swarm of multicolored balloons and gathered in small groups to giggle as 8-year-olds do.

“She just wore what she wanted to wear and everyone accepted that,” T’s mom says. “That was sort of her green light.”

T started wearing dresses and skirts to school and using the nurse’s bathroom.

But she was still “he” to the school.

That May, T made a decision. “My mom asked, ‘Do you feel like a girl or a boy?'” T recalls. “And I said, ‘girl.’ ”

T’s mom recalls the child whose birth certificate read “male” telling her: “Next year in school, I want to be a she and a her and a sister.”

‘Google it’

These days, teachers and students refer to T as “she.”

When another student’s parents had a problem with her using the girls’ bathroom, the principal was able to point to district policy and California law to affirm that students have the right to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

Gender aside, T is a fashionista who rocks her cheetah-print vest and leggings one day, and a sparkly T-shirt covered by a growling, glittery tiger the next.

Some transgender children choose to switch schools when they transition, to avoid the comparisons people, especially 8- and 9-year-olds, might make between their past and future selves. By staying in her school, in the same classroom and with the same teacher, T retained her support system and her friends.

But she also has to address the inevitable confusion.

One friend asked T if she was a boy or a girl.

T said she was a girl.

“But you were a boy last year,” the friend said.

“I’m a transgender girl,” T replied.

The friend asked what that meant.

T’s response? “Google it.”

The next day, the friend came back and said that she and her grandmother had done just that. Now they both know what transgender means, she said.

A third-grader in transition

It’s 6:10 p.m., and T sits at the dining room table doing homework. Her blond hair is tied into a ponytail to show off the reindeer earrings she recently bought. She grips a pencil with one hand and drums her fingers — nails painted dark blue — with the other.

Volleyball practice starts at 7, and she’s in a hurry.

There’s a poster above T’s bed of the college where she wants to play, and she can recite volleyball rankings by heart. Her mother played in college, and her sister plays competitively in high school. Now it’s a part of T’s identity too.

T’s favorite color used to be pink: the color she associated with being a girl, the easiest way to assert her femininity.

As soon as the world stopped overtly challenging her sense of being a “she,” T embraced the complexities of girlhood.

T’s favorite color now is blue. She often ditches the skirts for tights or basketball shorts so she can run around at school more easily, or wrestle her brother.

Her mom calls her a tomboy.

Her dad calls her a warrior princess.

She calls herself a normal girl.

Source

The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education removed prohibitive language in its policy on defensive weapons this week but will continue to debate which items will be allowed on campus, reported the Salisbury Post.

One school board member said pepper spray and other chemical irritants should be allowed in case a court strikes down the state’s controversial HB2, better known as the anti-LGBT “bathroom bill.”

“Depending on how the courts rule on the bathroom issues, it may be a pretty valuable tool to have on the female students if they go to the bathroom, not knowing who may come in,” said board member Chuck Hughes.

An editorial in the Salisbury Post said the policy — and Hughes’ reasoning — were misguided.

“Actually, LGBT people — often targeted by bullies — might have more reason to carry pepper spray than most students,” the editorial board wrote.

Board members agreed to allow chemical irritant and other defensive items onto school property, rather than requiring them to remain locked in student vehicles, so students would not violate the ban if they forgot to remove the items from their purses or pockets.

“I don’t want to put the students in this weird situation when they didn’t really do anything, they just happened to forget to check their purse every single day,” said board member Travis Allen.

A local gun shop owner said he was concerned about the policy, saying he does not sell pepper spray and similar weapons to customers younger than 18 years old.

“It’s going to be risky,” said gun shop owner Larry Hyatt.

Allen dismissed concerns about allowing items designed specifically as defensive weapons, saying he could harm someone with a spray bottle of Windex or ammonia — or even by using a laptop computer as a weapon.

Board members agreed to allow students to carry disposable razors, as well — although they maintained a ban on straight-edge razors.

After some disagreement on razors, board members agreed to specify that personal razors should be used for shaving only while at school.

Source – RawStory.com

According to WISTV, a local news outlet, the district has received special permission from Anna’s biological parents in order to try and clear up some of the allegations being put against them.

The district has issued statements that Anna is actually no where near eligible for graduation. While Foster claims that she enrolled as a Junior in August of 2015, and eligible for early graduation this year- her officials transcript shows that she has completed less than 25% of her required coursework for graduation. Currently she sits at 4.5 credits out of 24 total credits needed, technically slating her as a freshman.

Before official consent was given from the biological parents, the district did issue a press release that gave what information they were legally allowed at the time, stating in fact she was only a freshman.

The Lexington County School District has went on to state that her suspension and possible expulsion have nothing to do with bathroom usage but rather a turbulent behavioral record which saw her largely refuse to attend class.

“In fact, on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, due to her continued refusal to attend class, administrators held a special review meeting with her and placed her on probation,” the district said. “Most recently, on Thursday, April 28, 2016, she was suspended and recommended for expulsion — again, for refusing to attend class.”

Regarding the bathroom issue, a spokesperson for the district revealed that Anna has been given a special pass that gives her permission to be late to any class or function so that she has time to use the restroom.

An unnamed source, close to the issue, disclosed to TOL how disruptive these proceedings have been to the school and that they have jeopardized several individuals jobs.

According to WIST, Foster’s supporters have asked several Midlands lawmakers to intervene. We spoke to a couple of them, and one, Lexington Sen. Katrina Shealy said she’s willing to step in to battle for Anna’s rights. But based on what she knows right now, Shealy says “there’s no fight to be had.”

While this still doesn’t respond to some of the claims of harassment from teachers, or other school treatment- and certainly doesn’t approach the issue of only allowing a trans student to use one remote bathroom; these facts do shine a new light on the case.

As of this writing, Anna Foster has reached out to TOL to talk but we have been unable to connect yet. We hope to get her response soon.

Editor’s note- We certainly don’t want to take away from the bathroom argument, in that it is ridiculous to assign trans students separate facilities, but it is important that we present all facts as we get them so that we can present a clear and fair picture that doesn’t damage the transgender community’s credibility in any way.

Proponents of HB2, which asserts that people must choose which public restroom to use based on their gender assigned at birth, paint a vicious campaign of transgender individuals as scheming, voyeuristic pedophiles that endanger the safety and well-being of women and children.

Alabama is already working to follow North Carolina’s example and just last week, conservative Christian activist group American Family Association received upwards of 744,800 signatures pledging to boycott Target stores over its decision to protect transgender rights in their bathrooms.

With tension rising and information being hurled into the conversation from all angles, there is one critical element being overlooked: the safety and well-being of transgender children.

What Are Transgender Children?

To understand gender nonconformity, it is important to understand the difference between sex and gender.

“The difference between sex and gender is this: Sex is a biological fact, gender is a social construction,” says Kevin Jennings, educational specialist and Executive Director of social justice and conservation foundation Arcus. Transgender identification is the realization by an individual-even as young as two years old — that their gender, or the identity they want to present themselves as, does not match their anatomy.

“Transgender is kind of an umbrella term that really describes a person who has an internal gender identity that is different than the one they were assigned at birth,” explains Johanna Olson, MD., a pediatrician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Another category under this umbrella term is gender nonconforming, which Olson says can be used to describe children who are “not necessarily transgender” but who are “behaving or expressing their gender in a way that would be unexpected based on their genital anatomy.” In other words, this could be a boy-bodied person who prefers toys and activities often associated with girl-bodied children, such as dolls and playing with makeup, but who may not identify as a girl. Instead, the child may just have interests that don’t align with the current cultural expectations.

Transphobia

Since the media coverage of HB2, few outlets have reported on how this push for discrimination might affect children or teens who identify as transgender.

Developmental and clinical psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, PhD., notes that transgender youth often struggle during the onset of puberty, where unwelcome physical changes can provoke feelings of entrapment in a gender that just doesn’t feel right. Now imagine feeling bullied by the government, on top of mother nature.

Ehrensaft, the Director of Mental Health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center in San Francisco, cites transphobia as one of the biggest issues facing adolescents that don’t identify with their assigned gender.

“It is not an easy world for transgender youth once they hit middle school and high school. The level of bullying and harassment goes up remarkably,” says Ehrensaft. “In its most unfortunate circumstances we read about children taking their own lives or [becoming victims of violent crimes] purely because of their gender presentation.”

Here are some alarming statistics from the Youth Suicide Prevention Program & National Center of Transgender Equality:

• 82% of transgender youth report that they feel unsafe at school
• 67% are cyberbullied
• 64% have their property stolen or destroyed

• Over 50% transgender children will attempt suicide at least once by age 20.
• Over 30% of LGBTQ children report at least one suicide attempt within the last year

• 44% report physical abuse (ex. Being punched, shoved, etc.)
• 19% experience violence or abuse from a family member

A New Perspective

Adults and children that do not consider themselves transgender are still a major part of the equation. Talking to your child about the facts on transgender and LGBT identities promotes cultural awareness while limiting the likeliness of bullying. Explain that gender identity is something a person is born with, that sometimes does not line up perfectly with a person’s physical appearance.

“It’s an immutable characteristic in part of your core being and your gender identity is not a choice,” Olson explains. Just as you and your child wake up each day and feel a desire to identify and perform a certain gender, you could’ve just as easily and just as genuinely been born feeling like a different gender.

It comes down to acceptance, education and understanding. To know the origin of gender formation is to understand the lack of input the person had in terms of how they identify their gender. Making fun of a child for coming out as transgender, or any of the identities under the LGBT umbrella, is as nonsensical as ridiculing a child for their height or hair color.

“When [transgender children] are allowed to transition and given support to affirm their gender…they match the mental health of the average teen who is also allowed just to be themselves,” says Ehrensaft.

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One such person is Anna Foster, a transgender student at White Knoll High School in Lexington, South Carolina. Just two days before prom and five weeks before graduation, Anna has been suspended and is facing possible expulsion for using the “wrong” bathroom.

According to the petition currently up at Change.org

Anna was told that she cannot use the boy’s restroom because it would make the boy’s uncomfortable. But using the girl’s restroom would also make the girls uncomfortable, so they told her she could use the one nurse’s restroom. That restroom is located in the East building. Anna’s class when she used the girl’s restroom was in the North building. There are no concessions for Anna should she need to use the restroom between classes. Meaning, they will discipline her for being tardy if she has to make the trip to the East building to relieve herself, then head to class in the North building.

Anna, who turns 18 on June 29th, has faced a very rough situation leading up to this; one that only complicates the current events. Currently, she lives with the Volk family- Mike Volk explains:

One of the factors that makes this issue so challenging is that the student, who is 17 and turns 18 on June 29th, is that she was recently kicked out of her foster home and moved in with us just two weeks ago. She is not supposed to have contact with her birth mother, and because of her age, her DSS case worker is not willing to assist. We want to do all we can to help but we are limited since we are not legal guardians.

What makes this all the more pressing is that Anna has already been accepted into college for the fall semester and these events could have sever repercussions for her academically and professionally. Mike Volk is hoping to find some a solution.

She has been accepted into college starting in the fall. This action by the school is going to have a major impact on her professional and academic career. Again we are hoping that your attention to this matter will cause the district to reconsider the expulsion and allow Anna to finish the last 5 weeks of school with her classmates.

The family has reached out to local news outlets ABC Columbia, WIS TV, WACH FOX, WLTX News19 and The State Newspaper, but have not yet heard back. So we would ask that you please share this important story to boost the signal.

There is a petition currently at Change.org to urge the school district to reverse the suspension and keep Anna from facing expulsion. You can read and sign the petition here.

Here’s a comprehensive list of great books for kids — novels, picture books, workbooks, memoirs and profiles — that deal with transgender and intersex issues, gender non-conformity and sexual orientation as it relates to trans people. (There are so many good ones, especially in the last few years, that we couldn’t narrow it down any further!) All are well reviewed, many are award winners, a few are bestsellers and (surprise, surprise) two made the 2015 list of most challenged books. We’ve put them in order of age appropriateness:

The 2015-2016 edition, the Philosophy of Admissions’ section of the handbook states, “Mount Saint Charles Academy is unable to make accommodations for transgender students. Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender.”

Alumni of the school took to social media criticizing the policy of the school. According to the school’s website, the policy was updated in October of 2015. And, it is unclear if any students were asked to leave the school.

Mount Saint Charles teaches “in the tradition of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart” and is listed as a member school of the Providence Diocese. Leaders at Mount Saint Charles did not respond to questions. Neither President of the School Herve Richer or Principal Edwin Burke responded to questions.

According to the schools mission statement, “Each and every student is known, valued, treasured and taught in partnership with the family.”

“As a constitutional matter, the fact that the school receives some state aid is not sufficient to subject them to constitutional constraints, which generally apply only to government actions. There are, of course, separate statutes that ban discrimination in both public and private institutions, but many of those statutes have exemptions for religious institutions,” Steven Brown, Executive Director of the Rhode Island ACLU, told GoLocalProv.

In March of 2015, Pope Francis meet with a number of transgender men during a visit to a prison in Naples. “When Pope Francis pays a visit to Naples this Saturday he will have lunch with some 90 inmates at a local prison, a contingent that will reportedly include 10 from a section reserved for gay and transgendered prisoners, and those infected with the virus that causes AIDS,” reported the Religion New Service.

In 2013, when Pope Francis was asked about gay clergy being allowed in the Catholic Church, he responded, “Who am I to judge.” That statement was widely praised by gay, lesbian and transgender advocates around the world

In September of 2015, it was reported the Vatican upheld a Bishop refusal to allow transgender to be a godparent.

Source

There are only two weeks left in session for the Kansas legislature, but they are looking to go out with a bang. Two new bills, Senate Bill 513 and House Bill 2737, have been introduced that target the transgender community and specifically declare open season on transgender students. The legislature would effectively encourage students to seek out and report any transgender student that they find in the “wrong bathroom” or locker room/changing room. If they do, and report the student, they will be authorized to sue the school for $2,500 per incident.

The essential aim of the legislation seems to be reaching for a broader range though. The language of the bill points towards a higher goal of setting a precedent in the state to define gender and completely physical and reliant on physical criteria. The legislation specifically states, “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s chromosomes, and is identified at birth by a person’s anatomy.”

This would set a dangerous precedent that could gain a foothold for other states and champions of limiting transgender rights. If a piece of legislation gets passed that sets a legal definition on gender would soon create a snowball effect that promises to herald an onslaught of legislation.

A “slippery slope” as some conservatives like to say.

Opponents from Within

There are opponents though, including other republicans. Republicans like Stephanie Clayton (R), who attacked the bills and insisted that Kansas should be spending less time worry about bathrooms and more time worry about the state’s financial situation and simply keeping schools open.

First reported in the Oregonian, Delta Upsilon and Delta Tau Delta have pledged to reach out in greater numbers to the LGBT community at their Eugene, Oregon campus. The two fraternities are joining along with a handful of fraternities across the nation in creating a movement to further acceptance. Notably, Xi Omicron Iota- a sorority at Missouri State University, changed their bylaws to accept anyone who “identifies as a girl.” And the national organization Sigma Phi Epsilon announced that they would be considering transgender men.

Henry Korman of Delta Upsilon stated that the fraternity wants to change the idea of “frat culture” and become more diverse and inclusive.

“There are people in the community who might not have a comfortable place, a social group where they fit in,” Alec Malnati, Delta Tau Delta chapter President, said. “I’m just really hopeful we can be that place for people.”

The two houses hold out hope that the other 17 fraternities on campus won’t be far behind and taking their lead.