Join roundtable discussions and rotate between ten tables of your choice every twenty minutes from 11:15 AM to 12:15 PM. Engage in thought-provoking conversations and network with diverse professionals. At 12:15 PM, enjoy the lunch buffet and continue the discussions.

This Proposal constitutes a response to the systematic socio-legal marginalization of gender nonconforming children in the school setting that has, under a recent resurgence of a reactionary political project, accelerated to unnerving speeds. To counteract this resurgence as well as establish long term, preventative protections, I argue that components exist, within Education Law legislation and jurisprudence, with which we can articulate two legal rights for students in the education setting. First, the right of unconditional access to gender affirming care; and second, the related right to unrestricted gender expression in school. “Gender nonconformity” is an umbrella term used across several disciplines, such as sociology and psychology, and can include such gender identities as transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and others diverging from the gender one was assigned at birth. To that end, the term “gender affirming care” refers to both medical and non-medical care. The consequences of withholding affirmative care are well-known: marked increases of anxiety, depression, and suicidality in gender nonconforming children. These mental health consequences prevent gender nonconforming children from adequately engaging with, and thereby progressing in school. The need for affirmative care in schools and strong legal protections for it is thus doubly exigent: to reverse a deadly and all too avoidable mental health crisis, and allow schools to in fact actualize their raison d’être as spaces where children can engage with their schooling fully.