As some of you might recall, in September TFA helped a transgender Houston Community College (HCC) student initiate an investigation after she was referred to as a “freak” in her English class. The comment was made during a classroom discussion of a paper written by the instructor, Donny Leveston, entitled “Taboo: Incest and Homoeroticism” in which the instructor invited the classroom to discuss how they felt about a transgender woman’s pre-operative genitalia. The student said Leveston ended the classroom discussion by saying, “I don’t care what those people do, as long as they keep it away from me.”

Here’s what Leveston thought was appropriate reading material in for his English class:

The student said to me:

I was shocked when I read this. I mean, this isn’t a human sexuality or psych class, it’s an English class. I think there might have been some students in that class that were 16 or 17 years old. I just couldn’t believe that this was happening.

Well, after seeing the student in tears, I moved into hell raising mode. After HCC was deluged with an onslaught of outrage, they agreed to meet with TFA, the student and the HCC GLBT group. While all of this was going down, my mind almost exploded when I learned that the INSTRUCTOR thought that HE – not the student  – was the victim!

Hello, my FB’s family and friends, I come to you with a heavy heart. One of my female transgendered students is accusing me of discriminatory or bias remarks against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community. As a college fellow, a college professsor, and a person who has a niece and a sister who participate in LGBT activities, I would never institute a plan to undermine LGBTs. You all know me. I am asking you to stand up for me. I am a “tragic figure” all over the internet becase of the false claims. If I am your friend and brother, you will help to exonerate my name; you all know me, and you know that I would never act like that. Thank you.

– Donny Leveston, 9/23/11

After TFA and the student met with HCC administration, an investigation was opened. Here’s what came out of the investigation of Levenston’s behavior:

“… the Instructor failed to demonstrate sensitivity and treat the student in a respectful  manner in the following ways: 1) He did not show sensitivity in choosing the articles to share with the students, though he had prior knowledge that a student that was transgendered [sic] would be in class; 2) his email sends mixed signals by apologizing yet defending his own and the students’ rights to have their preferences and ends the comment with ‘case closed’ in essence dismissing any further dialogue; and, 3) failed to show concern for the student when she abruptly left the classroom and did not attend the next class period, yet the Instructor did not reach out to her to determine if there was a problem. Rather, it was the student who had to reach out to the Instructor.”

The student won’t be returning to HCC because HCC – unlike Houston’s PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM – does not protect transgender students in their official non-discrimination policy!

The student recently said:

“I’m grateful that the school recognizes that there’s a problem with that teacher and that they need to clearly include transgender people in their non-discrimination policy, but I’m not going to return to HCC. What happened to me in that classroom has changed the way I feel while at the campus. I’ll be attending San Jac [San Jacinto College] in Pasadena next semester. They have a very clear non-discrimination policy that is explicitly inclusive of transgender people.”

Yes, a PASADENA college – as in the former HQ of the KKK – has a clear non-discrimination policy that covers transgender people:

It is the policy of the San Jacinto College to provide an educational, employment, and business environment free of discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, pregnancy, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, genetic information, marital status, or veteran status. Trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, and other agents of the College will not engage in conduct constituting unlawful harassment or discrimination.

– San Jacinto College District, Pasadena, Texas

And as I mentioned before, even the Houston public school system has a clear non-discrimination policy that covers transgender people:

Employees of the District shall not discriminate on the basis of or engage in harassment motivated by age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, marital status, religion, veteran status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression.  A substantiated charge of harassment against a student or employee shall result in disciplinary action.

– HISD Public School System

After all this went down, HCC posted fliers to educate people on their rights. Unfortunately, the poster didn’t say anything about transgender people:

Transgender people not included

Currently, HCC administration has taken what seems to be a stop-gap measure to attempt to address anti-transgender discrimination and harassment by asserting that gender identity and expression are protected under their prohibition of discrimination based upon sexual orientation. Currently, one page on HCC’s website makes this assertion. However their actual nondiscrimination policy remains silent on the issue of protecting students from discrimination based upon gender identity and expression:

Actual – as in, REAL – policy: Transgender people not included

What the HCC office of Institutional Equality claims they do: Transgender people included… sort of… in parenthesis… as an afterthought of the sexual orientation category.

As I noted before, while the school might claim that  “sexual orientation” automatically covers “gender identity,” the idea that one’s intrinsic sexual desires equates to one’s intrinsic experience of one’s sex is fallacious. Additionally, while this is a nice start, the only thing that actually matters is what their REAL policy says. Currently, HCC’s non-discrimination policy EXCLUDES transgender people. Also, I want to call your attention to the fact that this exclusionary policy was adopted during the same time that a transgender man had been bashed on their campus.

While I do think HCC will get there… eventually… It’s offensive to me that they’ve not yet added protections for their transgender students even after what some transgender students endured at HCC over the past year and a half. The idea that “these things take time” is BS. LaKeia Spady was getting the HCC Student Government Association to pass a resolution to protect transgender students in the campus non-discrimination policy back in March 2010.  I know for a fact that Josephine Tittsworth was pushing for a trans-inclusive non-discrimination policy in around 2002. It’s been a DECADE. That’s long enough.

No more excuses. JUST DO IT already!

Oh… and just in case you’d like to leave some feedback on Mr. Donny “Sirena’s immense penis” Leveston you can do so here at ratemyprofessors.com .