Recently, while scrolling through my Instagram, I came across a reel that featured a passionate speech from Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, asserting to her Republican colleagues that she will continue to make her presence felt by filibustering all other bills until the State House withdraws the recently approved Legislative Bill 574, which restricts abortions and gender-affirming care to transgender minors. Moved by Senator Cavanaugh’s words and relentless energy, I reposted the reel on my Instagram page. Unsurprisingly, my endorsement of the reel was followed by a barrage of transphobic comments from right-wing and conservative users. As I scrolled through the comments, I realized how stubborn, uninformed, and vile many of the users were. Sadly enough, I wrote a similar article about this very issue a couple of years back, and while the opposition towards transgender rights was growing at that time, I honestly didn’t anticipate that it would intensify to the level that we’re witnessing in this current socio-political climate.
With Florida, Alabama, Texas, and so many other states aggressively pushing “Don’t Say Gay'' bills through their respective state legislatures, the need to prioritize the safety of our LGBTQ+ students within our school communities is greater than ever.
Although President Joe Biden signed an executive order in January 2021 that extended discrimination protections to include gender identity, LGBTQ+ students are still two to three times more likely to be bullied or harassed than their cisgender peers.
This trend of violence is even more prevalent with Black and Latinx transgendered students. In the 2015 U.S. Transgender survey, the National Center for Transgender Equality reported that approximately 75% of Black and Latinx transgendered adults experienced bullying and harassment during their K-12 schooling. Within the first five months of 2023, an astounding 549 anti-transgender bills have been introduced across 49 state legislatures in the United States, of which 373 have been approved, according to the latest update of the Trans Legislation Tracker. As the table below indicates, the number of anti-transgender bills introduced nationally has increased significantly since 2020.
*As of May 25th, 2023
Below are two examples of these bills:
These bills only give us a glimpse of the political attacks targeting LGBTQ+ students, but more specifically, transgender students. What we have been witnessing over the past few years is a nationwide legislative effort to erase transgender people from public life. This is the reality that our LGBTQ+ students face, so we must lead with empathy and care to build a foundation of trust and safety within the classroom. And we must also understand that the willful preservation of heteronormative societal norms by homophobic and transphobic individuals is symptomatic of the white supremacy culture that we’re attempting to disrupt in our schools.
Even if you teach within a state that is deemed blue, liberal, or progressive, please don’t be naive about the fact that your LGBTQ+ students still have to navigate a society where notions of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity intensify the homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, and other forms of bullying and discrimination that they experience in their journeys to and from school.
So while we understand the importance of respecting our students’ pronouns, let’s also be mindful and empathetic of the fact that a student’s courageous decision to come out to the world could potentially lead to a death sentence, as was the case for students like Tasiyah Woodland, Ariyanna Mitchell, and Jeffrey Bright. Even though those students are no longer with us to share their stories, we have an obligation to carry on their legacies by protecting and advocating for the rights of our LGBTQ+ students to live their lives freely and peacefully.
If you are a cis hetero person, please understand that allyship alone isn’t going to buck this trend. Reading and intellectualizing LGBTQ+ books isn’t going to buck this trend. Affirming gender pronouns isn’t going to buck this trend. Wearing rainbow tie-dye shirts isn’t going to buck this trend.
Fighting for the humanity and liberation of queer and transgender folx will require a boldness and fearlessness in our resistance that must permeate across this entire nation.
So what exactly does that look like? Well, here are a few things that you can do to help:
The passion and determination that Senator Cavanaugh displayed in her speech is the approach we ALL must take. At this point, liberation isn’t going to happen with us throwing baby jabs while our elected officials on the right-wing and conservative side keep hitting us with body blows.