“There’s a boy in here,” whispers an unnamed student to her friend as she left the bathroom. I immediately feel thousands of eyes boring into my back although there are only 3 girls left after the departure of the girl and her friend. I should be happy. That’s what I tell myself. Happy that I seem out of place in the girls-only facilities. I’m not happy. I’m scared.

I have been fully out as a transgender individual since the beginning of this school year. Surely, now that I am out and seemingly comfortable with my identity, I should feel safe walking into the boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms. I do not. I cannot.

I cannot feel safe walking into the boys’ bathroom, even at a school that is relatively tolerant of LGBTQ+ students. Not because of girls like the one who failed to keep her voice down. Not because I am uncomfortable or unsure in my identity. It is because I am practically alone in my experience.

I’ve imagined the scenario a multitude of times.

I walk into the boys’ bathroom. Due to my extreme efforts to pass– my short cropped curls, the way I walk with my legs far apart and my hips flung forward in an almost comical manner, my stoic expression, my consistently furrowed eyebrows and annoyed glare– all of which is to make people perceive me to be male, or to be too scared of me to suggest that I am anything but what I say I am, I incorrectly believe that none will be the wiser that I am wrong– that I “don’t belong.”

But, mere seconds after my arrival, all eyes are on me and I crumble under their stare. My facade falls to pieces as the sound of whispers and the feeling of eyes lingering on my body overwhelms me, turning sound to static and suffocating me. My surroundings fade out and I’m left alone surrounded by the torturous, cutting words of my peers.

That feeling. The feeling of isolation. The feeling of being singled out.

That feeling plagues every transgender youth, whether they have been out of the closet for years or have kept their identity in the dark. When you are a part of such a small minority that receives so much scrutiny and disapproval, it is hard not to feel that way. I have no one to turn to as an example for how to deal with this. Every other transgender individual I know is just as scared as I. We have no one to turn to.

There is no one telling me and my friends that it is okay for us to be who we  are in our school environment. There are no assemblies on these policies, no teachers and administrators drawing much needed attention to our issues. We don’t even learn about the gender binary in health class.  

We cannot even speak out about our own issues– our needs, our hopes, our fears– for fear of being persecuted by our classmates, our friends. We are damned if we speak up and take action, and damned if we don’t and choose to suffer in silence.

Transgender visibility in schools is a necessity. I do not want to come to school and fear discrimination (whether it be through acts of physical violence or otherwise) more than anything else that could happen to me at school. I do not want to feel the urge to gag every time someone calls me by the name I have left for dead. I do not want to bite my tongue and repress the urge to cry every time I have to relieve myself. I do not want to have to comfort my shaken peers who go through the same struggles as I on a daily basis.

But we cannot change this alone. Something needs to change. Our community needs to change. We need to change.

The genderqueer students of Chamblee Charter High School need to feel safe at their school. Whether that means we actively raise awareness by having assemblies or making videos for the school to watch or create subtle changes, like adding in a mini unit on gender in our health courses and letting the change happen gradually, the Chamblee community needs to support its students– all of its students.