About 100 teenagers rallied in northern France on Friday to pay homage to a transgender student who killed herself this week after facing tensions with school officials for wearing a skirt to class, a case that has drawn online indignation and national attention to the issue of gender identity. The students held a sit-in and a moment of silence outside the entrance to the Fenelon High School in Lille as school started Friday, expressing their anger and distress at the suicide of their classmate Fouad. Fouad, 17, killed herself Tuesday in a shelter where she had been staying, the school district said in a statement. She was identified only by her first name according to French policy for protecting minors. A psychological support program was put in place for the students. Classmates said Fouad had recently decided to go public about identifying as female and been summoned to speak with a school official after she wore a skirt to class. In a video that Fouad shared with friends and online, she is heard talking with the official, who argues heatedly that the teenager was upsetting others in the school. Fouad is in tears. The suicide prompted calls for more concerted efforts in the French education system to address gender identity issues in classrooms and to protect transgender students.