She sat on the couch in the principal's office, wondering what it felt like to have a private bathroom.
As the newspaper sponsor in the building, she had been called into this office on several occasions. Every principal she had in the building seemed to need a tutorial on student's rights to freedom of speech. She had only been in the building for five years, this was her fourth principal. She'd joked that she was the Principal Trainer, like How To Train Your Dragon. She was always the first under fire, and she was always in the right, and the new principal did not seem to know what the students' rights were before calling her in.
She knew what it was about. A senior, who had spent their entire junior year in remote learning, wrote an opinion piece on the vaccine numbers in the district. They had cited research from the local health authorities, interviewed parents and students, and concluded that the truth of remote learning slowing the spread of Covid will never be known, because parents did not have their students tested. It was widely known within the district that parents were sending kids to school with coughs and fevers, then not answering the phone when the school called. The student did not get any parents to admit this, but it was an "open secret" in the community. A twisted take on "don't ask, don't tell".
The student reported had been visibly frustrated while originally writing an article on remote and hybrid teaching in the district. They said they could tell adults were lying to them, and had asked to write an opinion piece instead. As the sponsor, she had cautioned the student against any language that would be incindiary, or misunderstood as name calling. Teaching journalism in 2021 had become more difficult than when she started ten years ago. Students had to be taught what a fact was and how to research it without any real examples to pull from, professionally.
The principal entered, five minutes after the meeting was scheduled and said "Good afternoon, Mr. Stern,".
She was not ready to do battle for herself. She thought this meeting was about the kids, not the principal's complete disdain for her gender status. After three years hiding her true self from admin and students on the western slope, she'd thought she had landed in a safe building. High socioeconomics, ninety percent of the parents had college degrees, LGBTQ club, two openly gay teachers and the median age of the teachers in the building was 46.
That was last year, before the new principal. She had not experienced any problems with staff or the previous administration mis-gendering her. She had not told her students, it was stressful enough to go through the process as a teacher and she had decided in two years, she would leave teaching altogether in order to complete the transition.
This particular principal, a PhD educated woman who had clearly thought the building she had been hired to captain was closer to Harvard than a public school, had made it clear she would not be referring to Chris as "she/her". Chris knew the union would back her, but because she had not known the topic of the meeting, she had entered the office alone. Rookie mistake, experienced teachers know to A) ask for clarification of the meeting topic and B) never go to an admin meeting alone.
The fight was going to be a long one. She had talked to the union and other teachers who had been forced into legal action. They all won, and their prize was to be returned to the same building under the same administration.
At that moment, she made a choice.
"I am she, you have been asked repeatedly to gender me correctly."
"That is irrelevant. I'm here to address a complaint from a student," she sat, crossing her ankles and staring through Chris' soul.
"Where is the union rep? I won't have this meeting without the union."
"We can clear it up here and now. The student claims you made inappropriate sexual r
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