Vermont is one of the states in which transgender people theoretically have equal rights.

I'm sure that's what AJ Jackson thought when he sheepishly walked into the boys' bathroom at Green Mountain High School in Chester, VT recently.

But the way some of his classmates see it, A J was still Autumn Jackson, a girl in boys’ clothing, who had violated an intimate sanctum, while two boys were standing at a urinal, their private parts exposed.

And that has led to students channeling their parents.

It’s like me going into a girls’ bathroom wearing a wig.

It’s just weird.

--Tanner Bischofberger, 15, a classmate who was not one of the boys in the bathroom at the time

Someone filed an official complaint.

That has led to a protest by students advocating that AJ be allowed to use the restroom that fits his identity.

[Note: The article actually uses the problematic phrase "bathroom of his choice." We object to that because it makes it seem as though our gender identity is a choice that can be changed on a whim. It is not that.]

On Thursday, the schools superintendent announced a new practice at the high school allowing transgender students to use the sex-specific bathroom of their choice, rather than being encouraged to use a gender-neutral bathroom. The announcement came a day before the Obama administration’s national directive was announced.

Now there is a counterprotest. Students like Mr. Bishofberger have showed up to school wearing t-shirts created by some enterprising parent which show the common toilet stick figures over the words Straight Pride as an expression of opposition to the new rule.

Like much of the country, this rural school of 300 students in seventh through 12th grade, where everyone insists there were never any cliques, is divided over the bathroom issue, with the teenagers here carrying out a proxy culture war for their parents and the country. Still struggling to form opinions about what makes a civil society, they openly quote what they have heard their parents say about the merits or demerits of transgender bathrooms.

Some say the new rule opens the door to sexual predators disguised as someone they are not. Others say it just violates tradition. A society has rules for a reason, and this is one of those rules, that’s just the way it is, they say.

Separate public bathrooms is a tradition that only goes back as far as Victorian days. Before that, public facilities for women did not exist. Then women tried to get jobs...

But I digress.

But on a more basic level, students at Green Mountain are complaining that a small vocal minority of gay, lesbian and, as far as they know, one — or maybe two — transgender students among them are trampling on the rights of the majority to decide what the rules of conduct should be.

The T-shirt-wearing students say gay people are being celebrated at the expense of straight people.

I just want to be clear: I accept everybody being proud. Everybody has the right to be who they are.

--Daniel Baldwin, 17, reading Catcher in the Rye while wearing a his Straight Pride t-shirt over his shirt dedicated to a thrash metal band

Mr. Baldwin said he thought people should use male or female bathrooms depending on what was written on their birth certificates. But he also said he would defend A J if someone tried to bully him for being transgender, or even for using the boys’ bathroom.

I would step up for A J. We’re Americans. We’re supposed to be civil.

--Mr. Baldwin

Oh, my God, we used to talk for hours about music.

--AJ, dismayed by how they are being torn apart

More broadly, the issue here has pitted resident against resident, often along social and economic lines. This is a place where big-city transplants wearing Birkenstocks and artsy jewelry mingle with working-class people in dirt-encrusted boots who know how to handle a shotgun and proudly inhabit the homes of their ancestors. Despite Vermont’s image as a place of bucolic egalitarianism, home of the avowedly socialist candidate for president, tensions over privilege and tradition simmer just under the surface, and the bathroom wars have brought them to the fore.

I go in and do my thing and leave, but I have a concern about child molesters and pedophiles.

--Joe Kopacz, 48

As we move forward as a community, there has to be compassion on both sides. He needs to understand that this has been 15 years that students have known him one way. It’s obviously his choice, but maybe he should have respect for his classmates right now.

--Deb Brown, school board member

His mother, Tracy, a case manager for children with developmental disabilities, and his father, Scott, a mechanical engineer, came to Vermont from Connecticut to try it out 20 years ago and stayed. They brought up A J and his older brother in a log cabin in the woods, where they raise chickens and ducks, including a duck named Bernie, for you know who.

AJ was in sixth grade when he realized he was meant to be a boy, and came out to the school last year in ninth grade, sending emails to teachers. When he entered Green Mountain in seventh grade,

I was using the female bathroom because, I really don’t know, I was still kind of back and forth about my identity. This year is the year I started using the men’s bathroom, because I already felt like way more comfortable in who I was.

--AJ

There were practical issues. When he had his period, he wondered if he should revert to the girls’ bathroom, because there was no place to throw away his used tampons. But he had started feeling like an intruder in the girls’ bathroom, and the single bathrooms were so far out of the way it was hard to get to class on time.

I use a stall, and I wait till everybody’s gone to get up and leave. The guys, they look at me like I’m some kind of freak, or they’re concerned or scared.

AJ does not use the men's restroom at the local Dunkin' Donuts, fearful that he will be beaten by straight men.

He says he understands.

There probably are some transgender people that are bad people, just like there are probably a whole bunch of gay people or straight people that are bad.

--AJ

Tom Ferenc, the principal, called Mr. Jackson’s mother the night of the complaint and told her that he was going to ask A J to use the gender-neutral bathroom, she recalled. The next Monday, A J and about 30 supporters walked out of the school in protest. Three days later, the district announced the new policy.

Autumn, A J, whatever you call them, hasn’t had any hormone or sex change yet. This opens up opportunities for other kids to do stuff they’re not supposed to.

They’re calling me a cisgendered, hypocritical homophobe.

--Mr. Bischofberger