She came in the middle of the school year with what felt like a warning in the form of a 504 meeting. 

This biological girl who identified as a boy was the first transgender student we had encountered at our small, rural school. As I walked out of that 504 meeting stunned and fully informed about the challenges I would soon face, I wasn’t sure what to think…

At first, I wanted to take a heroic stand for the truth by refusing to bow to this student’s whims and the pressure I was feeling from my administrator. To be honest, insubordination not only seemed like a justified response but also a righteous one. 

However, after time dedicated to praying about this situation, my thoughts, feelings, and plans changed. At that point, I felt God calling me to walk in the opposite spirit by planting seeds of His love within this precious student…so I decided to do just that.

Ultimately, I chose not to use pronouns at all when referring to this student, only calling her by her last name. (Since I often called students by their last names, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary to do so for her.) I felt that this compromise allowed me to avoid affirming her confusion while also allowing us to build a relationship.

On one of her first days in my classroom, I happened to be teaching one of my least favorite lessons. So in an effort to engage my students and myself, I tried to include as many antics as possible. This lesson about the importance of strong supporting details included building a human pyramid in my classroom…with me at the top. I was the “main idea,” and my students were the details that supported me. We do what we can, right?

After class, she came up to me and said, “Mrs. B, I want you to know that this was the best lesson I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I’ve been to lots of different schools, and I’ve never seen a teacher work so hard to get students’ attention. I cannot believe you actually climbed to the top of that pyramid! You really will stop at nothing to make your English class interesting!”

I smiled. We had started off well. 

Within a couple of weeks, she actually began to positively impact the culture in one of my most challenging classes by contributing in ways that made the other students step up. She held her classmates accountable when they weren’t paying attention and helped those around her who struggled with the material. She would hang back after class and offer encouraging words to me, especially after the less interesting lessons. I found so much comfort in this most unlikely of sources. As a result, I genuinely started to look forward to this class that had been the bane of my existence during the first half of the school year.

Initially, I had worried about how this student and I would interact, but the Holy Spirit gave me eyes to see her as God, her Creator, sees her. He helped me to love her as He does—not reinforcing her sin, but loving her through it. With His help, I was able to sow seeds of unconditional love into her life, and, in an unexpected twist, she blessed me and her classmates. 

As I got to know this student and more of her backstory, her struggles with her identity began to make more sense to me. Having been bounced around from foster home to foster home because both biological parents were in jail, she had never experienced a stable environment that might have helped her develop a sense of her true identity. She had very little control over her life due to her inconsistent and erratic living situations, so she was attempting to control the way people saw her by identifying as a transgender male. 

This student had no idea who she was. To put it more specifically, she had no idea Whose she was. 

As the end of the third quarter neared, she eventually confided in me, sharing her frustration with being too young to take hormones and have surgeries that would “make her chosen gender official.” 

She prefaced this by saying, “I know you’re a Christian, but I also know you’ll listen. And I really need to talk to someone about this.” 

At first, I was encouraged that the love I had shown her had caused her to believe I was a safe space to share her heart’s desires and disappointments. I could sense that God was working in her heart. But then, the reality of what she had said sunk in. 

Shew. How in the world was I going to respond to her?

Recognizing the beauty of this ordained moment, I paused and asked the Holy Spirit to help me respond as Jesus would. 

I explained to her that her gender was not the whole source of her identity. I told her I believed she was created with a purpose and nothing about her was accidental or unintentional. I can confidently state that the Holy Spirit guided my words as I spoke the truth in love without proselytizing. 

I can’t say she came away from the discussion ready to change her ways or that she accepted my advice. However, I felt peace knowing I did what God had called me to do.  

And, even though I only had a short amount of time with her, God used that valuable time, making it beautiful. He used me to plant seeds of His love in her life, and I’m trusting God to provide what she needs in the future to cause those seeds to flourish. 

If you need support while navigating transgender policies at school, Christian Educators can help. We provide resources on our website at christianeducators.org/gender, or you can contact us via christianeducators.org/help for counsel and prayer.