Name: Sylvie Malamet
Social Justice Group: Trans Rights: Gender Affirming Care (B)
Date of Fieldwork: December 17, 2024
Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Ava Dawson
What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:
Alex, my Citizen Action Project partner, and I interviewed Ava Dawson, the current high school nurse of LREI. At first I was very anxious about messing up and asking the wrong questions, but after we started, Ava showed that she was very easygoing and caring. As I started to stop worrying, we continued on in the interview.
We first asked her about her own experience with gender affirming care, and she told us that she has a transgender sister who had gotten gender affirming care. Ava said that she had helped support her sister with her transition. She also told us that, before she came to LREI, she had worked at a very run down public school. The issues at the school were much worse compared to LREI and she said that there were many bullying instances. As the nurse, many people came to her for helpo and she tried to help them to her fullest extent. The main gender issues there were that all of the bathrooms were gendered and most of the trans kids that went to her said that they felt physically unsafe using them. She helped them by giving them a key to the teacher restroom, but even that didn’t fully solve the problems because some teachers would question the kids and ask them why they were using their restroom.
When Ava came to LREI, she said that the whole school felt much more inclusive and supportive. We asked her if she, specifically, had helped anyone get care, and she said that, because it’s fully up to the parent(s), the only thing she could do was talk to them. If the parent(s) were in full support, she would talk with the student and their parent(s) about options and solutions. if the parent(s) were not in support, she and Ty, the school councilor, would have a very thorough and informational conversation with just the parent(s) and tell them why it’s important to help their child and support them through their journey.
Finally, Ava referred Alex and I to a few more resources and said goodbye.
