PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The School District of Philadelphia is allowing its students to identify in more ways than just male and female.
Starting Monday, students will be able to select a non-binary gender option in their online classroom portals.
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District policy says transgender and gender non-conforming students have the right to choose how they prefer to be identified, whether that name or gender differs from what they were assigned at birth.
Students can fill out a document to update their name and/or gender across Google learning tools and other school-facing systems, like report cards.
In a statement, Superintendent William Hite noted that these updates “will not display in any state-run systems and in no way replaces a student’s legal name.”
He continued, “When submitting information to the PA State Department of Education, the District will be able to note that a student identifies as non-binary, but the state is required to record and display the information from the legal birth certificate. We continue to advocate for similar changes to be adopted at the state and federal levels.”
