A group of students at Balboa High School is shattering traditional gender roles by successfully remaking policy in the school’s graduation attire, which historically had girls wear orange cap and gown regalia, while boys wore blue.
“The tradition is putting down people who don’t fit into gender boxes,” said Robyn, a junior at Balboa High School. “Our class is the first class getting to graduate wearing whatever color we want.”
Robyn is one of seven student members at Balboa’s Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center (LYRIC)’s Peers United for Leadership, Service, and Equity (PULSE) committee, an LGBT support program working with San Francisco Unified School District schools to promote more gender inclusive environments. Jamil Moises Liban-Ortañes leads Balboa’s twice-weekly LYRIC class, where students are transforming what they learn into institutional change.
“I was out there even at lunch, in the library getting everyone to sign the petition,” said Robyn, who helped initiate and undertake the plan of changing the school’s cap and gown dress code.
The group’s initial goal was to collect 300 signatures. When the team presented to school council’s committee with more than 300 signatures, the board had expressed unanimous support for the initiative.
Currently, the students are surveying their peers on their thoughts and opinions regarding the graduation dress policy. The surveys will be used to measure the need for the policy change, which is planned to take effect next year.
Robyn said the student projects developed out of the need to answer the question: “How do we tie gender to our school?”
Liban-Ortañez believes addressing this question is important to ending violence in schools against LGBTQ youth.
LYRIC serves 1,159 youth where 94 percent are low-income, 42 percent are under 13 years old, 35 percent are Latino and 56 percent are homeless or marginally housed, according to numbers provided by the organization.
“Most of the young men identify as ‘cisgender’ [their gender aligns with their biological sex] and straight and they learn how to take that and apply it to issues in the transgender and LGBTQ community,” Liban-Ortañez said describing some of the youth in his group.
In addition, other students worked simultaneously on a project to install the school’s first gender-neutral restroom.
The restroom’s formation, located on the first floor of the main building, was a collaborative effort between students and staff in Just Fierce Alliance (JFA) and LYRIC. Marissa Castro, who is a teacher and advisor to JFA at Balboa, helped students facilitate the project.
“The reality is that not everyone prescribes to these gender-prescribed boxes,” said Junel, another junior in the group who identifies with “they” gender pronouns.
The students in LYRIC make up part of four other PULSE committees which all presented their final reflections on May 20.
The LYRIC committee started its presentation by introducing their names, gender pronouns and defining basic gender terms.
“Gender fluid is someone who feels like a boy one day and they wake up the next morning and they feel like a girl,” Robyn explained.
Junel said the class helped them develop their identity as a two-spirit person. They described this identity as being a person with two genders in the same body.
“I learned about gender pronouns and how important they are to people,” Junel said, mentioning how gender mispronunciation had hurt Liban-Ortañez who identifies as transgender.
Liban-Ortañez said he might continue leading the same committee next year and is grateful for the changes on campus because they provide a needed dialogue about gender issues.
“The class had made me aware of how I speak to other people,” said Balboa student Nifo who recalled old habits of throwing the word “gay” as an insult. “I used to think saying that word was ok until I came into this class.”