All girls team, how to deal with a male identifying as a female wanting to join

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T18:23:15.264Z

As title says, having a bit of a conundrum. I would rather not say what team I’m from, kind of new to this online forum thing. Wondering if any other all girl teams have had this issue, and how did they deal with it. The person that is interested in joining has not gone through transitioning yet, and doesn’t plan on doing it.

nickbrickmaster · 2019-10-19T19:34:18.672Z

Trans women are women, whether they hold themselves to your standard of transition or not. Please take care to create an accepting environment on your team for your new member if she decides to join.

Unfortunately lots of cis people are uncomfortable around trans people in private spaces. I’m picturing hotel rooms for travel events. How you deal with this will be touchy. I don’t have any concrete advice here except to discuss with your mentors, the student, as well as probably her parents and the school administration (if you have one), in order to find a solution that keeps everyone (including your trans student) comfortable.

If you have to make compromises, try to make sure your trans student is comfortable. You have an opportunity to create a safe and validating space here.

Karthik · 2019-10-19T19:41:41.427Z

Consider contacting the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion department at FIRST. They may have some advice and best practices on how teams should with with scenarios like you’re facing.

FIRST – 22 Nov 16

Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion

FIRST is committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion. We embrace and encourage differences in race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, disability, age, religion,...

Contact info is at the bottom of the page.

jgreen2791 · 2019-10-19T20:13:31.207Z

As a parent and teacher on a all girls team, I feel uncomfortable with trans females sharing a hotel room at competitions. The potential cost of renting another room would already be detrimental to robotics teams and take away from other students.

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:30:07.168Z

That is a couple of the reasons we had for putting some extra thought into this decision. Money is very tight but we also want to support him through this time of tough changes.

mrnoble · 2019-10-19T20:33:17.590Z

I have traveled with my team to more than 25 out of state events. I have had trans students (both male and female) as well as nonbinary students, and gay and lesbian students, on almost all of these trips. It has always been my practice (consistent with my school and district policy) to book in advance with more rooms than are strictly necessary based on attendance numbers. There are always reasons why an extra room or two become necessary or helpful; for instance, on one trip we had a student on the autism spectrum who, it turned out, was unable to sleep due to the noisy sleeping arrangements, and we moved him into the extra room. The costs are planned for in advance and are part of the expected shared burden among the entire team. This is just as much a part of our fundraising expectation as, say, the purchase of specialized tool for the electrical subteam. It helps everyone out whether they are directly effected or not.

This seems so obvious to me that I find it implausible that you have not implemented it as both policy and an internal adjustment.

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:35:23.885Z

I agree most of your reply but must make it known that the community team, I am on does not have enough money to support radical changes to our policy like that. Possibly in the future we could have arrangements to help him.

mrnoble · 2019-10-19T20:36:42.039Z

You can’t pay an extra $300 to support her? Contact me I’ll pay her hotel bill.

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:45:23.524Z

No, money is tight, we are already struggling to pay for our regionals . Is there any grants that you know of that would help?

JohnFogarty · 2019-10-19T20:48:30.300Z

I fail to see how the topic of the thread and your team’s financial situation have anything to do with one another.

Is this a rookie team? Have you looked up companies in your area that sponsor FIRST programs? There are plenty of fundraising threads on this site. Please use the search tool to look through them if that is your primary need.

nickbrickmaster · 2019-10-19T20:49:38.318Z

Take out the trans bit. If you had a student that needed their own room for literally any other reason (eg for the student Mr. Noble had) , what would you tell that student? That they can’t participate?

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:52:08.120Z

I was simply responding with one of the reasons why we can’t just[quote=“mrnoble, post:8, topic:364441”]
pay an extra $300 to support her?
[/quote]
Normally If one of our students doesn’t want to be in the same room as others it is a slight upcharge.

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:53:14.985Z

nickbrickmaster:

what would you tell that student? That they can’t participate?

That is the reason I created this topic, I want discussion on that question.

JohnFogarty · 2019-10-19T20:55:02.876Z

I see. I misunderstood you then.

I have had trans students on teams I have mentored. We worked to ensure that we raised the money to ensure their needs were met hotel room wise. That’s really all there was to it. I made sure to contact my advisers to ensure everything was handled by the book.

Billfred · 2019-10-19T20:55:34.220Z

The Pandamaniacs are co-ed, but we have had a student and young alumni mentor transition over the years.

We consider both of them just as much of our team as we would’ve if they were cisgendered. If we had any reason whatsoever to doubt their sincerity in transitioning (and we didn’t), that would be a separate discussion. It simply hasn’t been a big deal in the shop.

HorseGirl2001 · 2019-10-19T20:56:55.198Z

Is there any way you could PM me some of your fundraising plans, we really don’t want to tell the student no. Our core values state that no student should be left behind.

connellsensational · 2019-10-19T20:56:58.794Z

You are legitimately considering not giving the opportunity of participating in a robotics team, doing it as a learning experience, just because her gender identity might make someone uncomfortable? This shouldn’t need any discussion at all, even if some accommodations are necessary.

Delr_n · 2019-10-19T20:58:01.399Z

I would stop treating her as an extra expense and instead treat her like a person. A little empathy in this situation might go along way, put yourself in her shoes. That might make the decision more clear.

Aaron_Li · 2019-10-19T21:02:46.945Z

mrnoble:

There are always reasons why an extra room or two become necessary or helpful

We have occasional problems with rooming too. Yes, while this makes the most sense, it’s pretty tight with our own team as well. When we go to TVR, we get the hotel within walking distance to save money for our second regional. Aside from financial needs, we’ve only had 2 solid mentors push for 15 years. Both were teachers, only did build and official competition seasons, and that was it. Couldnt afford to attend offseason, any of the “better stuff.” Ok, I’ll stop derailing.

vmorgs · 2019-10-19T21:05:17.958Z

HorseGirl2001:

The person that is interested in joining has not gone through transitioning yet, and doesn’t plan on doing it.

This is honestly irrelevant. There are probably very valid reasons why she’s not transitioning at the moment. (Gender dysphoria isn’t a requirement to be Trans.)

As other commenters have already said, financial reasons aren’t valid reasons for her not joining the team. Either hustle to raise more money & bring in more sponsors or do what we do…have all of your students collectively share the costs. When we go to travel competition’s our students ALWAYS pay for their own hotel rooms. If it’s been a good year financially, we may subsidize the cost a little but they still pay.