GUILDERLAND — Two transgender students — Julia Crooks and Ryka Sweeney — stood before the microphone last Tuesday to address the school board about their concerns, and the board listened.

At the end of the meeting, long after the students had left, board member Colleen O’Connell said, “We need to have appropriate LGBT policies and we don’t.” She also said, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, it is “a topic that will not go away and I suggest we tackle it.”

Several board members agreed. Gloria Towle-Hilt said she was pleased transgender students are accepted but warned, “We can’t leave it to good will.” Judy Slack praised the courage of the students in speaking out.

“It’s all about looking cool and collected,” said Sweeney. “In my head, I was freaking out.”

Sweeney was heartened to hear the reaction of school board members. “They were all looking at me, judging every move I made and every word I said,” Sweeney felt.

Sweeney, who has chosen the pronoun “they” as a self-reference, was attending a dinner for McKownville firefighters Friday night when they talked to The Enterprise about being transgender.

Sweeney just turned 17 but is already a firefighter — it’s a family tradition. Sweeney’s mother and father are volunteer firefighters and so was Sweeney’s grandfather and uncle.

Sweeney describes their household as free of gender roles and said, “My Mom is my best friend.”

A junior at Guilderland, Sweeney joined the Guilderland High School Alliance Sweeney freshman year. Sweeney is now co-president of the Alliance and also works at the Pride Center in Albany.

The Alliance was formed in the mid-1990s at a time when some of the school board members opposed the club.

“It’s a fluid thing,” Sweeney said of the Alliance. “We meet every Thursday.” Attendees can range between 10 and 30 or 40, Sweeney said.

“It’s a good place for people who are closeted to go,” Sweeney said. “Most of the members are LGBT...In my freshman year, a lot said they were straight but now they identify as queer.”

Sweeney remembers going to their first Alliance meeting: “I was really shy...I brought a bunch of my friends as allies.”

Sweeney was glad to have gone. “I really liked having a safe space with people who understood what I was going through,” they said. Sweeney described the president at the time — “she had a different hair color each week” — as someone who made Sweeney feel at home. “She made it easy and open,” Sweeny said.

It was a place where Sweeney didn’t feel judged and wasn’t called names.

A name Sweeney abhors is “faggot” — Sweeney calls it “the f-word” — but Sweeney has adopted “queer” to describe their own status.

“A lot of older LGBT find ‘queer’ offensive. Younger people are reclaiming it, making it our own,” said Sweeney likening it to “when black people use the n-word.”

Sweeney also said, “It’s important to know the vocabulary isn’t black and white. At the Pride Center, we say, ‘It means whatever it means to you.’”

The name-calling and harassment were worse at the middle school, Sweeney said.

Sweeney recalls two different incidents at the high school that have stuck with them — one Sweeney was proud of the way they handled it and the other not as much.

In gym class, they were playing flag football when one of the boys said, “Tackle the fag.”

“On the next play, I tripped him. He ended up with a bloody nose. He stopped bothering me.” That’s the incident Sweeney is not so proud of.

Another incident involved mean tweets being sent about Sweeney. Sweeney told Coach William Schewe, someone Sweeney respects. “He said OK and saw that it stopped.”

Eventually, Sweeney became an advocate. For two summers, Sweeney attended a leadership camp run by the Pride Center and Sweeney now serves on the center’s youth action team.

“We go to schools to facilitate meetings,” Sweeney said.

At Albany High School, Sweeney noticed gender-neutral bathrooms, which Sweeney described as single rooms, much like a bathroom at home, that is used my members of both genders.

“Instead of being a boys’ room or a girls’ room, it’s a single stall,” Sweeney said. “I personally feel uncomfortable using the girls’ restroom. I feel like everyone is looking at me — like, you’re not a girl. I just want to pee, OK.”

So, Sweeney thought, “If Albany has gender neutral bathrooms, why can’t Guilderland?”

Asked what it means to be transgender, Sweeney said it means different things to different people. Sweeney said of her friend, Julia Crooks, “J.C. identifies as ‘gender queer’...I’m nonbinary...I’m not a boy. I’m not a girl.”

Sweeney went on, “I’ve been raised in a household that doesn’t have gender roles.”

Growing up, Sweeney said, if her parents asked her to wear a dress, Sweeney would but felt more comfortable in pants.

Asked, if Sweeney looked to the future and thought about a mate, would it be a male or a female or a transgender person, Sweeney said, “I don’t have a word to describe sexuality....I like who I like. If it’s a girl, OK, cool. Or if it’s a guy, OK, cool. It has to be a thoughtful, caring person who gives back to the community.”

One thing Sweeney would like to see change at Guilderland High School is how introductions are made at the start of a semester. Instead of each member of the class introducing himself, herself, or themselves with name, age, and background, Sweeney would like it if the teacher asked each to give a preferred gender pronoun.

“I have a friend who is six feet tall with a puffy beard, who sings bass in a choir and uses ‘she’ as her pronoun,” said Sweeney.

Sweeney recommends that teachers make the pronoun pronouncement “a normal thing — make everyone do it.”

Sweeney also offered advice to other students who may be exploring their gender identity.

“Step one is take a breath; you don’t need to know every aspect of your identity before you graduate high school,” said Sweeney. “You don’t need a label to describe who you are.”

Second, Sweeney said, “Find safe bases where you can be yourself.”

In addition to the Alliance at Guilderland High School, Sweeney also goes to the Pride Center at 332 Hudson Ave. in Albany, which offers teen group activities and welcomes newcomers.

Sweeney has advice, too, for those who are not familiar with transgender people.

“Be open. If someone says, ‘I identify as blah, blah, blah,’ and you don’t know what blah, blah, blah means, ask them or go home and Google it.”