Schools Alliance, says his organization looks to the Illinois Human Rights Act as a guide. He says that many school systems are acting to prevent discrimination against transgender students. Several districts have joined Williamsville in adopting specific policies that spell out transgender students’ rights and call for their inclusion in restrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their gender identity. That list includes Chicago Public Schools, the Harlem School District in Rockford and districts in suburban Berwyn and Warrenville.

Meanwhile, a flurry of federal rules relating to rights for transgender people have been handed down in the last several months, most recently an announcement on July 1 that the ban on openly transgender people serving in the military will come to an end by the end of the year. InMay, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared it illegal to deny health care coverage related to transition. In March, came federal guidance that jails and prisons must consider gender identity in placing inmates.

In Illinois, two pieces of legislation related to transgender rights didn’t get far in the General Assembly. LGBT advocates opposed House Bill 4474, which would have required students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on their biological sex. That bill never got a floor vote, nor did another, House Bill 6073, which would have allowed birth certificates to be changed to match gender identity without requiring surgery as part of transition.

In 1955, Illinois became the first state to allow transgender people to change gender markers on their birth certificates. But Michael Ziri,