FEELING AT HOME—Harper Goebel, 5, left, joins her father, Kelly, and sister, Hayden, 9, as they play the video game “Just Dance 2020” at their Thousand Oaks residence in December. Harper, a kindergartner, socially transitioned from a boy to a girl last year. Now her parents have become staunch advocates for the transgender community. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/Acorn Newspapers
Megan Goebel’s 5-year-old daughter, Harper, loves sparkles, headbands, vanilla ice cream and the color purple. When she grows up, she wants to be a model.
Last May, Harper socially transitioned from a boy to a girl, a change her parents supported after observing what they believed to be a gulf between her biological sex and the way she had always acted and identified.
The Goebels said they first noticed the disparity when Harper was a “flamboyant” toddler who developed an obsession with her older sister’s clothing and insisted on wearing a headband with every outfit, even in public.
“I don’t know if a switch ever flipped but it started to go progressively more and more,” Megan Goebel said.
By the time Harper was 4, Goebel said, her youngest child would have “literal fits of rage” and cry until vomiting when dressed like a boy, and it would take her hours to recover from the episodes.
When Harper started playing T-ball, she told her mother it bothered her that teammates called her a boy.
JUST KIDS—Harper Goebel, 5, left, and her sister, Hayden, 9, play on the trampoline while taking a break from helping their father decorate. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/Acorn Newspapers
“I’m a girl,” she told her mom.
After months in therapy, Harper entered kindergarten in Conejo Valley Unified last fall with a new name and a new wardrobe to match how she felt on the inside.
Megan Goebel said the change in her daughter has been transformative.
“It’s like she’s at peace,” Goebel said. “She’s just healed because of the fact she’s being recognized as who she knows she is.”
Goebel said she considered switching school districts after the transition so children who had known Harper as a boy named Grayson wouldn’t make comments. But Goebel’s husband, Kelly, a Thousand Oaks native and product of CVUSD, insisted on staying.
So Megan began advocating for families like hers; she even went public with her family’s story at a November school board meeting.
The Agoura High School grad told the Acorn she wants Thousand Oaks’ public schools to provide additional training to help staff handle the unique challenges presented by transgender children, especially those as young as Harper, who is one of at least two CVUSD kindergartners to have socially transitioned.
QUALITY TIME—Megan Goebel applies artificial nails to Hayden’s fingers while Harper waits her turn. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/Acorn Newspapers
“Our principals, our teachers, no one is educated to speak or say anything, so my 5-year-old is left to advocate on her own behalf,” she said. “My overall hope is CVUSD becomes a safe place for trans kids at any age and if they come in in elementary school, that there’s a plan on how we handle these kids.”
Shifting views
The school district’s approach to transgender children has become an increasingly high-profile issue since 2015, when CVUSD updated its policies in accordance with federal law to allow transgender students to compete on teams based upon their gender identity rather than their biological sex. A vocal group of parents and at least two members of the board expressed concerns over the change, as they did a change allowing transgender males and females to use the bathroom based on the gender they identify with.
Then last year, California updated its health education framework with a requirement to teach secondary students about, among other things, gender identity and expression beyond the binary boy/girl distinction.
Neighboring Oak Park Unified has since adopted gender diversity training at the elementary level.
Since August, a steady stream of CVUSD parents, students and community members have voiced both support and opposition to teaching students about gender diversity, even though the district has not made any changes to its health education curriculum or instruction except to change sex education from opt-in to opt-out to comply with state law.
But Lisa Miller, assistant superintendent of student support services, said the district is actively looking at how to equip teachers to make sure that trans students are protected from discrimination and harassment.
To accommodate trans students, the district creates “school success plans” upon request with the child, their parents and school staff to spell out what pronoun and name the student prefers, how to access restrooms and single-sex athletics, as well as what assistance will be available for the student on campus, Miller said.
“We serve a diverse population, and it is our job to support that diverse population in being successful with their educational experience,” she said. “I definitely would want and hope that parents feel they have an ally in the school district to support their child in whatever it is their child needs.”
Kenny Loo, the director of middle school and professional learning, said that trans students are protected by the same laws and policies as other students in protected categories.
According to a presentation Miller and Loo gave at the Jan. 21 board meeting, staff has met with parents of transgender students five times since September.
The meetings revealed that the parents feel they are responsible for training staff because they have not received proper training, and that teachers and administrators want more training on how to handle classroom issues and questions that arise related to gender identity.
“The focus right now is absolutely to empower our district staff with the knowledge and support they need,” Loo said.
Miller and Loo said the district is not pursuing the K-6 gender identity curriculum option as Oak Park did.
Other experience
A mom of a transgender 10-year-old boy attending CVUSD who asked to have her name withheld told the Acorn her family’s experience in the district has been positive since her son socially transitioned. But, she said, her family has done most of the heavy lifting when it came to educating the school community.
The Agoura resident, who shared her family’s experience at the same November school board meeting as Goebel, said she gets that some people have a hard time understanding the experience of transgender children because of their personal beliefs.
“I actually encourage and welcome that conversation,” she said. “I try to not change people’s minds but to make them realize they’re just the same as anyone else’s kids.”
The mother of three said she understands the learning curve around trans issues because she experienced it herself. She said she had no personal experience with transgender issues until her son came along.
“Our child is the one guiding us,” she said. “We’re listening and we’re just learning as we go along.”
Kelly Goebel said it took him longer than his wife to accept that their youngest child was trans.
“For me, it was pretty tough,” he said.
Goebel, who comes from a family of military service members, firefighters and police officers, said trans figures like Caitlin Jenner never opened his mind regarding the trans experience.
“But when our child was so enraged for so long, you were forced to deal with it. And so was everybody in our family,” he said.
Goebel said he was the last to say “OK, this makes sense.” He said he came to terms with it after he coached Harper’s T-ball team and saw “the vivid difference” between his child and her teammates.
“There was no convincing needed,” he said. “Because it’s all there on display.”
While there is no data at the K-6 level, according to the 2017- 18 California Healthy Kids Survey administered to seventh, ninth and eleventh graders, over 30 students in CVUSD reported that they were transgender and another 79 students said they were “not sure.”
“We’re going to use this as an opportunity to be the change, to pave the path,” said Megan Goebel, who recently started a podcast, “Navigating Gray,” to open up about her family’s journey. “There’s going to be other kids.”