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SUNDAY • JUNE 12 • 2016
KEEPING THEIR IDENTITY
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Designs revealed for new KU student housing ———
Residence hall, apartment complex to open within next two years By Sara Shepherd Twitter: @saramarieshep
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photos
LANE WEIS, A TRANSGENDER, SOON-TO-BE SENIOR STUDENT AT FREE STATE HIGH SCHOOL, is hopeful that district 497 officials will follow recently-issued federal guidelines that recommend transgender students be allowed to use a bathroom that best corresponds to their gender identity. BELOW: Etana Parks, a sophomore transgender student at Lawrence High School, began transitioning last school year. She wants to ensure that she will be able to use the pronouns and facilities that match her gender identity.
Transgender students reflect on challenges as lawmakers pursue bathroom policy
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dress transgender students, however, has recently been a focus of attention on the national, state and local levels. Last month, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education issued guidelines directing all public schools to allow transgender students to use facilities and participate in school activities consistent with their gender identity, including restrooms, locker rooms and sex-segregated sports. The guidelines also say school staff should use pronouns or names that correspond with a student’s gender identity. Please see TRANSGENDER, page 4A l LGBT task force to give
report to school board. Page 3A
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I think I’ll get a lot of criticism next year, because there aren’t that many trans women in the school. So I’m just going to be going to school like, ‘Ignore me, please.’” — Etana Parks, Lawrence High School student
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Please see HOUSING, page 8A
Author Thomas Frank explains the failures of the Democratic Party
By Rochelle Valverde • Twitter: @RochelleVerde
awrence High School student Etana Parks is expressive. Her hair is dyed aqua and she talks openly, a carrying voice accompanied by wide gestures. Next school year, though, Parks, who was born male, is afraid of being noticed. When she begins her sophomore year in August, it will be the first time that Parks will present herself as female. “I think I’ll get a lot of criticism next year, because there aren’t that many trans women in the school,” Parks said, noting that transgender males seem to be more common. “So I’m just going to be going to school like, ‘Ignore me, please.’” How school districts ad-
Kansas University has shared designs and more details about the new residence hall, dining facility and apartment complex that will soon be constructed in the Central District. Their look is a far cry from the quaint brick Stouffer Place family apartment buildings that had dotted the same hillside since 1957. Like more than one other newly constructed building on campus, the new facilities are large, rectangular, four- to five-stories and feature quite a bit of glass.
Combined, they’ll provide beds for more than 1,250 KU students. Once they open, KU expects them both to be full, KU Student Housing Director Diana Robertson said. “We need the new beds specifically because we’re increasing enrollment, so that is to help us accommodate that first-year class,” she said of the residence hall, envisioned primarily for freshmen. The apartment building will be for scholarship athletes, upperclassmen and graduate students. Robertson said a market analysis showed that
ritically acclaimed author, Mission Hills native and Kansas University alumnus Thomas Frank took the Republican Party to task in books like “The Wrecking Crew” and “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” On Wednesday, more than a decade after Frank’s best-selling account about the rise of conservatism in his once-progressive home state first hit bookshelves, he’ll revisit his old stomping grounds to discuss his newest work, “Listen, Liberal.” In it, Frank analyzes the failures of his own party, the Democrats, and how, by his argument, the once pro-labor “Party of the People” has abandoned the working class in favor of the elite professional class.
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He’ll chat about the book and sign copies from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St. The event, organized by the Lawrence Public Library as an appetizer of sorts to this month’s upcoming Free State Festival, will be free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Please see FRANK, page 7A
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The Kansas City Symphony performed in front of a crowd of about 7,000 during the 11th annual Symphony in the Flint Hills event Saturday. Page 6A
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