LETHBRIDGE – Dillon Hargreaves is an openly transgender woman who contemplated suicide in her teen years, but is now living as a woman and has learned to embrace herself. Hargreaves spoke at a Wednesday meeting to discuss policies protecting lesbian, gay and transgender students in Lethbridge public schools.
“It was the home and education environment that I grew up in that really instilled a fear in me of people who were gay or trans,” Hargreaves said. “It took me a long time to accept and realize who I was.
“It wasn’t that I was scared of what happened when I came out; it was the mindset that I was living with that were deeply ingrained that I couldn’t come out myself.”
On Wednesday, over 1,000 people attended the public meeting at Wilson Middle School.
The meeting was called to elect four citizen members to a special six-member committee. Upon arrival, some guests received a note with four names on it, encouraging people to vote. Some people attending the meeting claim the note was not given to people who support the policy.
Hargreaves said there were no homosexual candidates elected, but she said they provided a message of support for queer and trans students. She took the stand at the meeting and described the attitudes within her own family that nearly cost her life.
“For me to go through it was hard–harmful and painful. But to watch someone else go through it, it really tears at the heart.”
The committee will meet over the next few weeks to craft its recommendations, with an April 19 deadline set for those recommendations to be presented to the board.
Board officials say they will ultimately make the decision.
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