Teens in Colorado are changing the conversation about gender identity, creating a comfort zone among peers to identify as transgender, “gender fluid” or “a-gender.” Among their requests: use “they” as a singular pronoun.

At George Washington High School in Denver, students in a gay-straight alliance are raising money this year to buy chest binders for transgender boys who can’t afford them.

Teens at New Vista High School in Boulder chose to study heteronormative culture, and the privilege that comes with being a straight, gender-conforming person. And at Littleton High School, student journalists produced a short documentary about gender, interviewing classmates who wrote their preferred pronouns on poster boards and held them up as they spoke.

Across Colorado and the country, the conversation about gender identity is buzzing in school hallways. More than ever, students feel safe enough among their peers to express their gender identity in ways those from older generations have not, using vocabulary many of their parents have never heard.

Some identify as "gender queer" or "gender fluid," meaning they don’t fit into the binary, using the pronouns they and them as singular words. Others are “a-gender” — identifying as neither male or female.

“They are owning the culture of their school,” said Kirk Quitter, principal of New Vista, where students created an LGBTQ sandwich in the cafeteria. The “Q” stands for cucumbers.

It’s typically adults, not students, who most fear how gender identity affects safety and learning, said Eldridge Greer, director of social and emotional learning for Denver Public Schools. “Let’s not let our anxieties, how we were raised, impact another generation,” he said. “If we let our students lead, we would be in a much better place than not.”

Here are three Colorado teens who have helped change the conversation.

Kaleb

Kaleb Lynch, 17, was the first out transgender student at Falcon High School near Colorado Springs in the small, conservative town of Peyton.

Kaleb started the first LGBT club at Falcon High last year after asking permission from the principal and putting up flyers in the hallways. Almost 30 students showed up to the first meeting, most of whom were “still in the closet.” Among the club’s members are about five transgender students, though they have not yet come out publicly, Kaleb said.

“He is brave,” said Kaleb’s mother, Angela Rogers, and his courage has helped other students who thought they were the only ones.

Students in the club often talk about dealing with depression and how to come out to their parents. Kaleb said his dad is “on board now,” but he had to explain multiple times how a trans boy differs from a lesbian. “We still get mistaken for lesbians,” Kaleb said. “We are men attracted to women, men or both.”

At 8, Kaleb told his mother he was a boy, but he knew no one else like him and had no word for how he felt. Years later, he figured out the words by searching online, relieved to finally understand.

“You’re not alone with it,” he said. “It just felt like I belonged somewhere and I knew who I was.”

Theo

Theo Beasley, 17, and his classmates at Cherry Creek High School produced a short film this year to educate teachers about transgender students and use of pronouns. This is how he summed up the message of the project: “This is what’s happening and it would be cool if you could accept it.”

At his request, most teachers use he-him pronouns to address Theo as well as his new name, although one teacher continues to say “Hey girl” or “Miss Theo” and another uses no pronouns at all.

Theo dreads a day when there is a substitute teacher, who is likely to call roll using his birth name, the official legal name in the school computer system. “I just try to suck it up because it’s only for a day,” he said.

About 40 people are members of a gay-straight alliance at Cherry Creek called Spectrum, and about one-quarter of them identify as transgender. “It’s a crazy amount,” Theo said. “A lot of my friends are transgender.” Among 3,500 students at Cherry Creek, about a dozen identify as trans, Theo said. “Obviously, it isn’t a big percentage but it’s enough to be comfortable,” he said.

Almost all are trans boys, who are more easily accepted than those who transition to female. “People are more comfortable with judging when it’s to femininity,” Theo said. “It’s a lot easier to be a trans guy than to be a trans girl, just across the board, in high school and in society.”

Theo binds his chest and often wears a black baseball cap, which seems to him the key to getting others to see him as a guy.

Students in the Spectrum club who transitioned in elementary or middle school are mentors for those transitioning at Cherry Creek High. The group is so comfortable with the concept of gender fluidity, they can switch a friend’s preferred name or pronouns almost instantly when requested.

Theo, a junior who struggled since third grade to fit into gender norms, preferring to wear boys’ clothes instead of girly dresses, identified as “a-gender” for a few months last year. Theo didn’t feel like a boy or a girl, spending those months in short hair and big sweaters and asking friends to use they-them pronouns. Near the end of the year, Theo chose his new name and told friends he identified as a boy.

“We are not extreme,” he said. “We are just trying to live our lives and let others live their lives. Being a trans guy is just home. It’s a label that once I had it, this is correct. I can finally be myself. You don’t have that kept inside of you. Once that burden is off your shoulders, everything is better because you are just genuine.”

Cal

Calder Lopez, who is gender fluid or gender queer, chose a name that means water. The 18-year-old prefers the pronouns they-them.

“I don’t identify strictly male or strictly female,” Cal said. “I’m just along the spectrum. There’s pink and there’s blue, and I’m purple.”

It’s a feeling Cal has always had, but didn’t release it until church camp two summers ago. Campers were told to write something they needed to let go of on a rock and then bury it in the ground.

“We were supposed to think of something that we were holding onto from our past. I chose to write my birth name on this stone,” Cal said. When a counselor asked why, Cal responded, “I need to let her go so I can become me.”

Cal, who graduated last spring from ThunderRidge High School in Highlands Ranch, felt a “deep grief for what I was losing, which I guess was never really there.”

Before that summer at camp, Cal had no friends and hardly spoke to anyone, head usually buried in a journal or book. Cal was one of the only gender-queer students at the school, and as a senior was befriended by a handful of freshmen also struggling with gender identity.

Cal is a soft-spoken, mellow person who wears a chest binder, trousers and numerous silver rings. Cal is misgendered often as female, and few people within Cal’s family, small circle of friends and restaurant coworkers have managed to refer to Cal as they or them.

“People say, ‘You understand you can’t be a they-them. That’s plural,’” Cal said. “It’s the 21st century. They are just words.”