8 features
the
Evergreen
wednesday, october 7, 2015
Finding His Place
Greenhill’s welcomes first openly transgender student to Upper School Zoe Allen Arts Editor
Kids love dress-up games: a princess, a knight, a rock star, or even a professional athlete. For a time, kids are transformed into something else, a person completely different from themselves. But when sophomore Sloan Touchet looked at his child self in the mirror, he didn’t see himself. The only time he felt like himself, in fact, was when he was dressing up. Rather than transform into a superhero, like most four-year-old kids, Sloan would put on dress ups and feel at ease. Sloan donned his brother’s clothes and even cut off all his hair. But these acts were no façade; they were a part of who he truly was. Sloan Touchet is navigating new territory for Greenhill. Starting this summer, he announced his official transition process from female to male. This process was preceded by months of work disassociating himself from gender altogether. Sloan is considered transgender, which means that he has experienced a mismatch between his gender identity and his assigned sex. (Gender is what you choose to identify as, and sex refers to the sex organs that you are born with). Sloan said he was four years old when he started disassociating from the female sex. “One of my earliest memories was when I was looking at myself in the mirror and I [said] ‘that’s not me, that’s not who I am’”, said Sloan. “I looked like a little girl with long blond hair, and I just didn’t think that that was who I was.”
In fourth grade, Sloan started wearing his brother’s clothes and cut his hair in a traditional “boyish” haircut. When he had the opportunity to pick his own clothes, he always chose his brother’s handme-downs. Over the 2014-2015 school year, he began to disassociate himself from gender. He asked friends to use gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” or “them”. He was trying to become himself, he said. Sloan describes this part of the process as “gender dysphoria”. “It’s always been a little thing in my mind, I just didn’t know it was gender dysphoria until recently,” said Sloan. “I’ve known that I didn’t want to identify as female for awhile now, I just didn’t know that I wanted to identify as male.” Prior to Sloan’s transition, Greenhill never had a policy about transgender students in place. To this day, there still is no policy. “We have not written an official policy,” said Laura Ross, Head of the Upper School. “Our policy is just our Greenhill mission, to be an inclusive community for all people.” Last year, Mrs. Ross and Head of School, Scott Griggs, spent time at conferences and reading up on gender dysphoria. After attending the conference, they realized that there was bound to be a transgender student at Greenhill sometime soon. Sloan’s parents, Kassandra McLaughlin and Michelle Touchet, said that the most difficult part of his transition might be remembering to use the right
pronouns. “You have to really think about how this person is not a different person, even though this person is [transgender],” said Ms. Touchet. According to Sloan and his family, Greenhill has handled his situation with all means to preserve Sloan’s dignity and rights. “We’ve talked to other parents who are in similar situations [with transgender kids], and by far Greenhill is the most active and doing the best job of creating a scenario that is supportive,” said Ms. McLauglin. “My name, gender, and email were changed in Senior Systems,” said Sloan. “Greenhill has been amazing.” Sloan said that the most difficult part of his transition might be watching the people who have known him for his whole life rewire their brains for his situation. Many people have said that they sometimes forget to use the proper pronouns when addressing Sloan. He has not encountered any face-to-face issues of transphobia or prejudices against him being transgender. “I try not to surround myself with people who aren’t supportive,” said Sloan. “Everybody’s great. I’m having a great transition.” On the first day of school, Sloan was reintroduced to each of the Upper School classes as his “new” self. He received applause, and even general confusion as to why he was being introduced. “I actually had some students who [said] ‘why did they have to make such a big deal about it, it’s just Sloan!’” said Mrs. Ross.
Photo by Sudeep Bhargava
HELPING HIMSELF: Sloan Touchet is Greenhill’s first openly transgender student. After dealing with gender dysphoria since he was four, he publicly annouced his transitioning from female to male this summer.
She said she found this very heartening. Sloan, and many others, has seen people work hard to adapt to his situation and support him. “I’ve had teachers come to me and say, ‘am I doing this right?’ and really asking questions,” said Mrs. Ross. “Supportive questions, because they want to get it right.”
Even though Sloan’s gender has changed, his personality has not been dramatically altered in any way. “I’m still the same kid. The only thing that has change is my name and pronouns, and how my brother tells me to ‘stop washing my face if I want to be a guy’” Sloan said.
Coming to America: Vietnamese Exchange Student Enrolls at Greenhill Simra Adebi
Asst. Features Editor
Kien Pham is not used to hardy debate in English class. Only a few short months ago, he moved to Dallas from Vietnam. There, at Hanoi Amsterdam High School, Kien Pham would attend as many
as 13 classes before noon, and then go home to complete homework alone and memorize his flashcards. He is now a junior at Greenhill and the school’s newest exchange student. He has come here to fulfill his dream of studying in
Courtesy of Kien Pham
HANOI TO DALLAS: Junior Kien Pham comes to Greenhill from Hanoi Amsterdam High School after being paired with Greenhill through ASSIST. He if fulfilling his dream of studying in the United States.
America. In the two short months he has been here, Kien has learned that academic rigor doesn’t always mean hours of study without collaboration. Instead, as he’s finding at Greenhill, conversation in classes such as English can bring a level of multi-dimensional thinking that enhances education far more than memorizing flashcards. Kien first found out about the ASSIST program, which pairs international students with private schools and host families, through his friends. “The idea of studying in the USA has always been an ambition of mine ever since I was a little boy, but I’ve always thought of studying at the college and university level,” said Kien. “However, at the beginning of the junior year at Vietnam, I heard some of my friends talking about some exchange program to the US, so I thought ‘what the hell, let’s just take it, what if I got it?’” In order to apply for ASSIST, applicants must write essays and go through interviews for the selection process. If they receive admission, they must write another essay which determines the school they are placed into.
Kien notes that one of his favorite things about Greenhill is the fact that he only has five to seven classes, as compared to the 13 courses he takes in Vietnam. Even though Kien said he spends more time on homework here than he did in Vietnam, he said he enjoys classes here more than in Vietnam. “In Vietnam, they teach us really strict. We have to try hard in all our 13 classes to get a high GPA, and here it is a lot more relaxing with only five classes. In Vietnam, we can just copy down everything and then memorize it and we get high grades,” said Kien. “Here, you have to understand the whole thing and interpret it in your own way, so it’s harder in a sense, but I kind of like it, because I understand the actual lesson.” As well as differences in teaching, Kien said he also loves the relaxed atmosphere of Greenhill classes. “In my classes in my school in Vietnam, the students hardly ever participate during the lessons. They just sit down and copy everything when the teacher goes on and on and writes on the board. Here it’s more like a discus-
sion. In just a normal class, students want to participate and they want to give their opinions out to others, and I like that very much,” Kien said. According to his Upper School English teacher Karin Thomas, the ability to speak his mind comes out dominantly in class discussions. “Kien has a feel for language, and is able to communicate on many levels inside and outside the classroom he makes people feel comfortable. More important he is interested in what things mean beyond the surface. He does not content himself with the superficial,” she said. Along with the academics of Greenhill, Kien said his most memorable experience so far has been the Friday night football games. “I’ve never seen a football game before, and I still cannot understand football at all, but just the atmosphere there was so crazy, everybody was so pumped up and cheering for Greenhill and shouting and booing at the other team,” he said. Kien said coming to Greenhill has reinforced his dream of coming to America for university in two years time.