Open Forum

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

Our gender neutral bathrooms are in the corridor next to the auditorium and opposite the tiny, tiny dressing rooms. We place the girls in the large classroom in the same corridor and cover the windows, and my gender fluid students tend to use the neutral bathrooms, if its a serious thing for them. The students I have that are transgender and actively so use the dressing/changing room they identify with.

We've not had problems, though I am waiting for the other shoe to drop a little bit, though at the same time, it's something I pay attention to but don't make a show out of. Students know I am approachable about the subject, but it also depends on the sensibility of the student. Though all teachers are informed of the gender status of the various students we have, some students appear to think we have no idea that they are on the register as 'Hermine' and identify as 'Charles', which just depends on the students outlook, I guess.

Exciting times to teach!

------------------------------
Phillip Goodchild
Theatre Arts Instructor/Assistant Department Head of English
Ruskin FL

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

Original Message------

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

Here at Atherton High School we allow students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. If a student is offended then they have a separate bathroom set aside. The reasoning is that a person does not choose their gender identity but a student chooses to be offended. That being said, so far I haven't had any of my theatre students identify as transgender but I do have several transgender students in my classes. 

If you look up Atherton High School, transgender on google you'll see all the nationwide coverage we received when we instituted our policy (of which I was a part). Quite a roller-coaster ride, too!

------------------------------
John Perry
Drama Instructor
Atherton High School
Louisville KY

Original Message:
Sent: 09-13-2016 06:13
From: Mark A. Zimmerman
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

In my limited experience with transgender students, I have found that the best practice is to ask the student what they prefer.

--

Mark A. Zimmerman

Theatre Director,

Akron School for the Arts

Firestone High School

470 Castle Blvd

Akron, Ohio 44313

330-761-3275

FirestoneTheatre.com

We also have very limited space backstage.  We use a rolling divider to create a small space in the dressing room/backstage area for girls to change behind, and the boys use a small room off the side of the backstage area. But we have a transgender actor and a genderqueer actor in our program, so I have designated the backstage lighting closet as our "all-gender dressing room" and I always make an announcement right before we begin dress rehearsals: "the lighting closet is an all-gender dressing room; anyone can use it, but only ONE PERSON AT A TIME."  I put a sign on the door saying this, too. This way I'm not singling them out, I'm making it available to anyone but keeping it private by only allowing one person in at a time. We have lots of all-gender bathrooms in our school, so it's familiar to all. 

I agree - it's so great that we are having this <g class="gr_ gr_2398 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="2398" data-gr-id="2398">conversation,</g> and emblematic of how far we have come as a society.

------------------------------
Susan Sterman-Jones
Drama Teacher/ Director
Grace Church School
New York NY

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

We are fortunate to have separate bathrooms with one lockable stall each in our green room area.  I have never had to make this announcement before, but will be for our production of Sweeney Todd. 

For your situation I would combine two of the ideas above. 1. Multi-gender dressing room with stalls for ANYONE who wants to use it, 2. your current dressing room for one gender, 3. a covered window classroom or pipe and drape hallway for gender two.

Actually, awesome to have this conversation here.  (Hope we can help the rest of the school figure this out!)

------------------------------
[William] [Myatt] [Director of Theatre]

[Pleasant Valley High School]

[myattw@pleasval.k12.ia.us][563-332-5151][Bettendorf][IA][USA]

Original Message:
Sent: 09-13-2016 07:42
From: Susan Sterman-Jones
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

We also have very limited space backstage.  We use a rolling divider to create a small space in the dressing room/backstage area for girls to change behind, and the boys use a small room off the side of the backstage area. But we have a transgender actor and a genderqueer actor in our program, so I have designated the backstage lighting closet as our "all-gender dressing room" and I always make an announcement right before we begin dress rehearsals: "the lighting closet is an all-gender dressing room; anyone can use it, but only ONE PERSON AT A TIME."  I put a sign on the door saying this, too. This way I'm not singling them out, I'm making it available to anyone but keeping it private by only allowing one person in at a time. We have lots of all-gender bathrooms in our school, so it's familiar to all. 

I agree - it's so great that we are having this <g class="gr_ gr_2398 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="2398" data-gr-id="2398">conversation,</g> and emblematic of how far we have come as a society.

------------------------------
Susan Sterman-Jones
Drama Teacher/ Director
Grace Church School
New York NY

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

We have two small dressing rooms, and two restrooms in the hall outside them.  For large cast shows, we always have to hang supplementary costume racks out in the hall, and those racks are used by anyone and everyone.  Frequently we segment off a portion of our scene shop for dressing as well.  Quite a few transgender students have been in productions the past couple of years.  They usually dress in the restrooms and hang their costumes on the supplementary racks. Only one student has asked where I wanted him to dress.  We talked over options, and he decided to use the restroom.  So far, all of our trans students have been male, born female, and they haven't wanted to dress in the male dressing room.  Frankly, the students seem to be figuring this all out by themselves.  I am just standing by, trying to make sure safe environments are in place.      

------------------------------
C. J. Breland
Asheville High School
Asheville NC

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

We are fortunate in having back stage spaces that can have multiple uses. The tech room becomes our makeup and hair room during production week. We have two small dressing rooms, 2 restrooms, and a ramp area for the handicap to get on the stage. With large casts we use the dressing rooms for girls, and set up a costume rolling rack in the ramp for the boys. The bathrooms are for anyone who needs privacy.  I am fortunate that most of the fluid gender students seem to be able to work out where to change. Our school also allows them to visit whatever restroom they feel comfortable with during the school day, and that raised quite a stir. Some parents made the press with their protests, however, the school board stayed firm, thank heavens.  So far the transgender students in the theatre company have been born female, but identify as male. One is open about starting the process of making the physical transition. I am proud that theatre is considered a safe place, because the students are so open and accepting. Is there any way to create a space outside of the backstage? We rented a trailer and parked it out back during an extremely large show, and used that as an additional dressing room. Tough getting to and from on the cold, rainy nights - but it provided an alternate location.

------------------------------
Valerie Farschman, Drama Director
MLS Theatre Company, Troupe 1422
Marion L Steele High School
Amherst, Ohio

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO

I feel like a big part of my job has always been to help protect the most vulnerable and gentle kids.  Most of the time most of my kids are supportive of our Transgender individuals, and I'm so proud of how they behave.    

Of course, those aren't the moments and kids that we need to worry and fret over.  I guess the same principle applies to dressing rooms in general... as it does to trans-kids - They should all have to ability to get dressed and do shows comfortably (at least as comfortably as anyone does...this is, after all, a pretty stressful biz).  

two things to add to the conversation:

1.  I have a great principal and I have gone to him for advice about dressing rooms, and guidance (He has his finger on the pulse of the community and school board).   Depending on how you get along with your principals, you may want to consider including them in developing policies or procedures (or not if you don't get along, obviously)

2.  A sort of similar question about what do with sleeping / room arrangements with trans kids on trips.  I'd hate to give them their own room and have a sort of a "If you're trans - you get special treatment."  Sort of a policy.  So, if s/o gets their own room, and they pay the same as the kids who are 4 to a room... that's not fair, but forcing them to pay different rate, so they can get their is obviously not fair either... so what have you done as you travel out of your area?  

------------------------------
[Drama] [Dan] []
[Drama Teacher/Director]
[Dublin Coffman HS]
[Dublin] [Ohio]

Original Message:
Sent: 09-12-2016 07:33
From: Scott Hasbrouck
Subject: Transgender actors and dressing rooms.

First let me just say how grateful I am. that we live in a world where this can be a conversation we have. I remember a time when most of my gay friends had to "play straight" for their jobs. Theatre was the safe place for them. Now Denver's Pride parade is one of the biggest in the country. I feel very blessed to even be able to pose this question. I don't like to call it a problem. My only real limitation is space.
When I first took over the program at this school, the issue was that everyone changed into their costumes all in the same room. Obviously this was a problem when it came to freshman girls and senior boys. We finally managed to create two separate dressing rooms, albeit one is still quite cobbled together.
In the current cast for Living Dead in Denmark, I have several gender fluid students. My costumer raised the question, what shall we do for dressing rooms? Our school now has gender neutral bathrooms. We don't have any backstage space beyond the two dressing rooms. I don't like the idea of sending these students elsewhere to change. Like wise I'm not totally comfortable with the "change wherever you want" scenario, because I still have 14-year-old girls and 18-year-old boys.
My wife had the idea of taking one of the current dressing rooms and creating a series of changing stalls like fitting rooms in a department store. All gender neutral, all private. The other existing room would then be for hair and make up. I like this idea, although I'm afraid we would all be rather crowded, especially for musical later in the year.
Has anyone else had this come up? What have been your ideas?

Scott Hasbrouck
George Washington HS
Denver, CO