Alias career in schools: what it is and how to apply
Alias career in schools
Today, when we talk about gender identity, we also discuss career alias in schools: for transsexual people who do not recognize themselves in the gender assigned at birth, it consists of the possibility of using the chosen name in class. A step which, the associations for the protection of trans people reiterate, is essential for expressing and building gender identity at an individual and social level.What to know:
How does the career alias work in schools? How can I request the career alias? Propaganda against alias career Scotland has approved one of the most advanced reforms in the world for the rights of transgender people It will make it possible to recognize the gender in which the person identifies without the need for a medical certificate from the age of 16
How does the career alias in schools?
The career alias in schools allows you to change the personal name with that of election in the electronic register, in the lists and in all internal documents of the school having an unofficial value. “There are people who, during their schooling, experience gender inconsistency and therefore perceive their own identity as different from the one corresponding to the sex assigned at birth – explains the lawyer Vincenzo Miri, president of the Lenford Network -. When they perceive this inconsistency there may also be negative repercussions on their academic performance. When a person's psychological well-being fails, performance in school can also suffer. Being named in the school context with the name that person feels is very important, also because perhaps they have already started a parallel course with a psychologist and/or in a structure specialized in gender inconsistencies in pre-adolescent or adolescent age" .“A career alias is also and above all recognizing the right to study for trans people, in an environment such as school where hostility and discrimination are constant, as confirmed by the data collected by the European Rights Agency fundamentals (Fra)", says Elisabetta Ferrari, president of the Genderlens association. According to a survey conducted in 2019, discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and sexual characteristics is actually on the rise in the European Union: 43% of lgbtq+ people said they felt they had suffered discrimination in 2019, compared to 37% in 2012.
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How can I apply for a career alias?
In Italy the Ministry of Education one has not yet proceeded to issue specific guidelines for the activation of the alias career, to which schools can refer to draw up specific protocols. “So everything falls within the possibility of issuing regulations on the basis of school autonomy – continues Miri -. By law, the school must promote well-being, but at the moment activating the alias career is not an obligation". Without unitary guidelines, interventions in this sense up to now have been patchy. “As things stand at the moment, it remains a concession – explains Ferrari – everything depends on the sensitivity of the school management. At the moment there are about 200 schools that have included the alias career proposal in their regulations ” .On the Genderlens association website it is possible to view and print a model of alias career proposal that can be activated in schools, which a an adult (or a family in the case of a minor) can submit to the school management.
“It is always good practice to also ask for a meeting with the management: given that it is the school board that decides, raising teachers' awareness is very important”, adds Ferrari. Denying the introduction of the alias career in schools “prevents these people from being seen: giving them visibility is considered something that undermines a system – concludes Ferrari -. Anyone who considers these requests a fad only wants to create a social panic in families that are not trained. To say that one is trans for fashion means invalidating the experience of these people, with all that this entails in terms of discomfort, which unfortunately lead to suicides, depression and eating disorders” .
The testimonies collected by the associations that protect the rights of the lgbtq+ community underline the importance of the introduction of the alias career for the psychological well-being of those who manifest gender incongruity. "There are those who lose an entire school year, crying every time the name assigned at birth is mentioned - says Mari - but after the introduction of the alias identity regulation, these same people live their daily lives well within the school walls ” . Genderlens then specifies that together with this provision other practices should then be agreed, including "the use of safe spaces, such as the choice of the bathroom and the changing room for the trans student, because these are the places where serious episodes often occur of bullying".
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Propaganda against career alias
On 6 December 2022, the spokesman of the anti-abortion association Pro Vita e Famiglia onlus, Jacopo Coghe , announces “about 150 warnings to as many schools that have approved the so-called career alias". For Coghe ”assigning a different name to a student based on a mere a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is not only a harmful procedure for her healthy psycho-physical maturation, but above all it is in open contrast with the regulations in force in the administrative, civil and potentially even criminal fields". And she maintained that " the alias career is an act tainted by incompetence as the school administration has no power to change the personal name and legal identity of an individual ”.The associations that protect the rights of trans people, including Rete Lenford and Genderlens, respond by specifying that the feared hypotheses of ideological falsehood committed by the public official in public deeds, of impersonation or even of instigation to commit a crime are groundless because the alias identity "affects the pseudonym identity, protected by the civil code, and has no effects on the personal identity or outside the structure that decides to adopt this career” . The alias identity "does not act on the physical identity, or rather on the set of somatic characteristics which make it possible not to confuse one person with another", they continue, and there is no change in the personal identity (ie that set of data identifying a person within the institutions of a State).
To change the personal identity, our legislative system provides for a well-defined procedure, established by law 164 of 1982 through a request to the prefect of the province of residence. A process that takes years to complete. At the moment these are the various steps foreseen for the official change of personal identity. “A multidisciplinary team, made up for example of an endocrinologist and a doctor from a specialist structure, takes care of the person who claims to be in a situation of gender incongruity. From that moment the talks begin, and the specialists decide whether it is necessary to administer drugs that block sexual development – concludes Miri -. Each case is unique but on average a structured course lasts at least a year. When a report is produced by the experts, you can go to court and even here the times are not standard, it depends on the city. From the moment of filing to the exchange of documents, it usually takes a year” .
