Lonely road: Why school is hell for transgender pupils

Independent.co.uk – By Rachel Pugh

When ‘Lauren’ decided she wanted to be recognised as a girl, life at school became a nightmare. Should teachers be doing more for transgender pupils?

The day that Lauren Quick, 11, started at the mixed comprehensive in her Yorkshire home town, an older lad stormed into her classroom at break, shouting, “Oi, there’s a tranny in here – show me where it is!”

Suddenly, Lauren, who had been insisting from the age of three that she had “a girl brain in a boy’s body”, was surrounded. She was distraught and, weeks later, made her first attempt to kill herself. Two further attempts followed in the next five months – the last in the school lavatories.