Isaac Ruiz's Letter to the Trustees of the La Feria Schools Regarding Transgender Student's Yearbook Photo

8/13/2019 Isaac Ruiz's Letter to the Trustees of the La Feria Schools Regarding Transgender Student's Yearbook Photo

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SENT BY EMAIL AND MAILNovember 14, 2013La Feria School BoardP.O. Box 1159203 East Oleander AvenueLa Feria, Texas 78559

Re: J e y d o n LoredoDear Trustees:

I S A A C R U I ZBROADWAY EASTSEATTLE, WASHINGTON 98102

From a news report, I learned about the demand letter sent to you by theSouthern Poverty Law Center concerning Jeydon Loredo s yearbook photo. Iwant to share my perspective. Please make this letter a part of the official record.I attended La Feria schools from kindergarten through high school and

graduated in 1994. When I was growing up, we spoke virtually no English athome. There were no college graduates in my family. Af ter school and onweekends, my brothers and I worked in the farm fields. My teachers in La Feriadevoted their lives to helping kids like me. They helped us learn the language, likeMrs. Sealey, my kindergarten teacher. They taught us how to express ourselves inwriting, l ike my high school English teacher, Ms. Gutierrez. They taught us math,like Mrs. Bates in Tenth Grade. They taught us computer programming, likeCoach Sanchez in Twelfth Grade.

La Feria teachers went beyond the call of duty. I once expressed aninterest in marine biology to Mr. Sealey, my high school science teacher. Beforeyou knew it, Mr. Sealey and I were in the middle of the Laguna Madre collectingspecimens for a new salt-water tank. My government teacher, Mrs. Nicholson,knew about my fascination with law and politics. When she found out I didn thave cable TV, Mrs. Nicholson started videotaping CNN and Headline News so Icould watch them the next day at home. I qualif ied for the state debate tournamentmy sophomore year. The night before the competition, my coach, Mr. Zamora,took me on a trip to see the state capitol up close and lit up for inspiration.

I have the utmost gratitude and affection for La Feria schools, and I owemuch of my success to its teachers and administrators. After high school, I wenton to graduate from the University of Texas at Austin (1996) and from law school


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Trustees o f the La Feria SchoolsPage 2at the University of Notre Dame (2000). Today I am a partner with the law firm ofKeller Rohrback L.L.P. in Seattle. I m just one of countless La Feria successstories. Some of my friends are now teaching the next generation of La Feria kids.It is a tribute to La Feria schools that so many of my friends a n d my brotherhave chosen to have their children educated in the same schools we attended.

It pained me to read about the case of Jeydon Loredo. I hope you can tellfrom what I ve written that I do not want to believe that La Feria is intolerant. Butthe manner in which Jeydon s yearbook photo has been handled is a stain on LaFeria s reputationa reputation that was hard earned over many decades bygenerations of educators and students. I don t know Jeydon. By all accounts,however, he is a fine young individual. He has never had any disciplinary issues. Iapplaud Jeydon because he has the courage to be who he is. Jeydon isn t doingthis for attention. Jeydon is a transgender male and is acknowledged as such by amental health professional. As far as you and I are concerned, it is a scientificfact. I t is not, and wil l never be, the place of a school administrator to overrule thejudgment of a health professional.

Think of your own children. What i f the principal told your child that heor she had to wear clothes associated with another gender? What psychologicaldamage would that cause? How angry would you, as a parent, be? That s theposition in which Jeydon and his mom find themselves. Jeydon is, from the pointof view of his family and his health provider, a young man. He needs to wear ayoung man s clothes. But the school has presented Jeydon with a Hobson schoice: I f he agrees to dress as a woman, he will be untrue to himself andbasically agree that there is something wrong with being who he is. I f Jeydondoesn t dress as a woman, then the yearbook will be printed without his photo.Years from now, Jeydon will look back and see an empty spot where his photoshould appear. La Feria will , in effect, have wiped Jeydon from the history books.

It appears that Jeydon has a strong network of family and loved ones whosupport him B ut the choice that the school has given him wi ll inevitably causehim severe emotional harm.I f we begin from the premise that Jeydon is, as a scientific matter, a male,then requiring him to wear women s clothing in the yearbook is like telling thequarterback of the football team that he can t be in the yearbook unless he, too,

wears a drape or a blouse. I f a school administrator said that to the quarterback,the community would be right to question the administrator s sanity and hiscompetence for the job.


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Trustees of the La Feria SchoolsPage 3

I've seen the photo. There isn't anything scandalous about it. Thecommunity will be okay if it is published. When I was young, the high schoolsponsored an armual powderpuff game in which the boys dressed as cheerleadersand the girls dressed as football players. There was no community uproar. I ask: Ifthe school traditionally sponsored an event in which boys were expected to dressup in girls' clothing for nothing more than a frivolous night of fun, why would theschool prohibit Jeydon from wearing clothes associated with his own genderwhen it is backed up by science and the opinion of his health provider? The onlyanswer I can come up with is that the administrator has a preconceived, misguidedattitude toward transgender people. If the administrator is truly afraid of how thecommunity wil l react, then he is not giving the citizens of La Feria enough credit.Most are open-minded, caring people who aren't interested in creating a nationalcontroversy.

Being transgender is not the same thing as being gay. But having grownup as a gay kid in La Feria might help me understand some of what Jeydon hasgone through. From my teen years forward, I knew on some level that I was gay,but I didn't have the guts to admit it to myself or anyone else. A couple of boys inthe grade ahead of me taunted me because they somehow figured it out. One nightI went to return a video at the Video Depot on Commercial Avenue when I hearda voice yelling at me from the darkness: F t , I'm going to f g kill you. Ihad other similar experiences, which kept me up many nights, but I never toldanyone about them because I was afraid.There was another boy who moved to La Feria in the Ninth Grade. He wasgay but, unlike me, he had the courage to tell the truth about who he was. For thishe was mercilessly bullied and, one day, had the pulp beaten out of him by fellowstudents. Our Spanish teacher was Mrs. Escobar. When she found out whathappened, she became enraged. The next day, Mrs. Escobar started each classperiod with an impassioned speech condemning violence and begging herstudents to be more tolerant. A few snickered and laughed. Someone broke intoher classroom (she had a portable classroom outside the school building) andurinated on her desk. It was not easy for Mrs. Escobar to do the right thing, butshe did it because she had the courage of a great educator. That's the courage Iwant all of you to show now.Your job is difficult and important. As I conclude my letter, I wonder what

I'd be thinking if I were sitting in your chairs. I think I'd want to base my decisionon science and medicine, not preconceived and inaccurate ideas about transgenderpeople. I 'd want my decision to promote an atmosphere of acceptance andtolerance. I'd want to encourage, not discourage, students from expressingthemselves in a safe and responsible manner consistent with the First


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Trustees of the La Feria SchoolsPage 4Amendment. I d want to show the community that the appeals process is fair andthat the School Board is not afraid to overturn an administrator s decision when itis wrong. I d want the decision to stand the test of time so that our descendants donot look back upon it with shame. I d avoid harming Jeydon, particularly whenhis yearbook photo doesn t interfere with the rights of other students. I d avoid, atall costs, wiping Jeydon from the history books. I d want to follow the La Feriaschools nondiscrimination policy. And, finally, I d want to move beyond thisissue and turn attention back to the all-important business of classroom teaching.

All of these considerations weigh in Jeydon s favor. I have faith in LaFeria and in the process. I ask that you, the Trustees, make the right andcourageous decision.My warmest regards,

Isaac Ruiz

Telephone: 206-Email:

Documents

Isaac Ruiz's Letter to the Trustees of the La Feria Schools Regarding Transgender Student's Yearbook Photo