I spent 36 years as a teacher. I started as a graduate teaching fellow at the University of Oregon, where I spent 5 years teaching first year college mathematics. After receiving my PhD, I spent three years at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. That was not a productive three years since both my parents died during that time. So I moved on to the University of Central Arkansas, where I taught for 16 years. My final dozen years of teaching was done at Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, NJ. I moved to Jersey because the Arkansas environment was not conducive to the health of a transgender woman.

Imagine my surprise to encounter a news story about transgender people and issues coming out of Bloomfield.

Kathryn Flynn's child is a transgender girl. Her child came out to her last September.

Flynn asked her child when he first realized he was female; he repeated the question back to his mother.

It was different for me. I always knew I was female. And he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘So did I."

She’s still the same person. The only thing that has changed about my child is her appearance.

--Flynn

Flynn was one of four panelists at a Transgender Symposium, sponsored by the Bloomfield School District. Other speakers included attorneys Robyn Gigl and Marc Mucciolo; Aaron Potenza, Garden State Equality’s director of programming; and Cindy Sherman, a Bloomfield High School guidance counselor.

I’m here because I want to normalize what it means to be transgender and what it means to live with someone who is transgender. It is not as scary or strange as you may think.

--Flynn

Her transitioning child does not attend the Bloomfield School District, but the high school has an LBGTQ community, which Sherman nurtures. The program has evolved into GLOW, which stands for Gay Lesbian Or Whatever.

The group has grown from five students to more than 40.

For many, that 45-minute to one-hour block is a lifesaver.

--Sherman

Potenza, who identifies as a transgender gay man, attributed the recent visibility of transgenders to people feeling “more comfortable with themselves and coming out.”

Gigl, who began transitioning in her 50s, outlined New Jersey’s law against discrimination. In addition to race, color, religion and gender protections, sexual orientation was added in the 1990s, followed by gender identification or expression in 2007, she said.

All Bloomfield has to do is follow the law.

These days, the three things I deal with the most are bathrooms, bathrooms and bathrooms.

In New Jersey, you use the restroom based on your gender identity.

--Gigl