Tracey Wilson goes to a public school now. But because of the 11-year-old, the Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese is now the first Catholic school board in Canada with a policy to accommodate students with gender dysphoria.
Details of the policy were released Wednesday. In general, it requires principals, teachers and students to respect the right of transgender children to choose the names and pronouns they want to be identified by, to wear the uniform (boy's or girl's) that best fits their gender identification and to have privacy in bathrooms and change rooms.
The policy was negotiated after Tracey's parents filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal in spring 2013 and is similar to the rules adopted in June by the Vancouver school board and earlier by public school boards in Toronto and Edmonton.
"She is thrilled and very happy and proud and feeling affirmed in her commitment to be who she is and in taking a stand," Tracey's mother, Michelle Wilson, said in an interview Tuesday.
Despite the Catholic board's new policy, Tracey and her siblings won't be going back to their old school. The family also won't be returning either to the Catholic Church or the congregation they loved.
Michelle says it's just too hurtful because the church doesn't accept transgender people -- its leaders believe that God doesn't make mistakes when it comes to gender assignment.
Yet, the Wilsons decided that they had to pursue the human rights claim unless the school board came up with a policy.
"Change has to start somewhere," Michelle says. "And if nobody stands up, nothing happens. My husband is black. We would never have been able to marry if someone hadn't stood up for [the rights of] blacks.
"We need to do what we can to make sure no other child feels that kind of rejection that ours did."
Transgender dysphoria is rare. Using data from specialized clinics, researchers estimate that one in 11,000 men (0.009 per cent) and one in 30,000 women (0.003 per cent) are transgender.
But the Canadian Psychological Association's website suggests that its incidence is underestimated because the majority of people never seek treatment because of the stigma attached.
Born a boy, Tracey has lived openly as a girl since the summer of 2012.
After much counselling, testing, anxiety and fear, the Wilsons went to the principal at the Catholic school that their three children attended in September 2012 and asked that all of the accommodations now in the policy be granted to their daughter.
The principal balked, saying that it was up to the administrators and the board to decide. But while administrators talked among themselves, Trey/Tracey was suffering from depression and anxiety even though some teachers, parents and students were supportive.
In November, the Wilsons moved their children to Ladner Elementary School where, after hearing their story, Ladner's principal Jaye Sawatsky, broke into tears and promised to do all that she could to help.
She agreed to all the Wilson's asked for. Plus, Sawatsky (who retired last year) brought in the Wilson's psychologist, Wallace Wong, and a trans educator, Lukas Walther, to educate her staff.
The Wilsons knew that all little kids had blurred gender lines -- boys playing with dolls, painting their fingernails just like mom or dressing up in fairy wings at play time or girls playing with trucks, preferring carpentry to cooking or dressing as cowboys as opposed to cowgirls.
But by the time the little boy they'd named Trey was five, the Wilson realized something was different.
Unsure of what was going on, how to help their child or even how to help themselves as their marriage frayed with the strain, they went to Tania Zulkoskey, a family counsellor specializing in gender issues.
"When we realized this was more than just Trey being gay, that our child was transgender, she (Zulkoskey) helped Garfield and myself through our grieving process with the loss of our son, and the discovery of our daughter," Michelle says.
That's when their journey into the world of transgender children began.
"I was scared for our child. I was scared for our family and there was a lot of stress on our marriage. I thought, at one point, that it would be so disruptive that we would have to start over again in a new community."
Over time, the Wilsons have come to understand gender dysphoria as akin to a birth defect.
Since 'coming out' as a girl, Michelle says there has been no grey area, no day that Tracey has said she doesn't want to be a girl.
Michelle says the Wilsons ask often, reminding Tracey that this is not a "forever decision" and that gender runs along a spectrum with some women more feminine than others and some men more masculine.
Tracey and her family fought hard to ensure that the special needs of transgender children will be met.
And, in the end, the Catholic school board agreed that the needs of all children is paramount and has moved Earth, if not heaven, to do that.
