The laundry list of attacks on the trans community has expanded both in length and in bounds across the US. Limitations on medical treatment and patients seeking gender affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, top surgeries, and bottom surgeries. Schools and athletic organizations, answering questions that hadn’t yet been asked, banning trans kids from playing in school sports. Schools and public libraries banning LGBT+ books and drag queen story times. Schools banning any mention or discussion of LGBT+ topics, people, families. All in the name of protecting our children. Protecting them from fabulous deviants. From glittering heretics. From flamboyant hedonism. From grooming.
Ignoring the statistics of mental illness, substance
use, suicidality (trans/NB suicide attempts increased 40% in the last year),
these protections have proclaimed yet again in the face of diversity, “you don’t
belong. You are less than. You are loathed.” The dangers of such lamentations
are decidedly obvious, but quite possibly one of the biggest threats to the
safety of our trans/NB children is the spread of parental notification rules in
public schools. Essentially these policies require teachers to out children to their
parents before they are prepared to do so themselves, under the guise of
protecting the rights of parents, ensuring parental involvement, and open
communication in families. A witch hunt of sorts that for many will result in an
emotional death sentence for kids when their parents will undoubtedly respond negatively,
even abusively.
For myself, I felt the pang of fear for my community’s kids
across the nation, watching the ill-fated battle unfurl on distant coasts from
the safety of my liberally-dominated progressive California home. My heart
ached for the trials and tribulations I knew they would face in less supportive
communities, in unsupportive families. While the trend was far from surprising
in most states (is anyone surprised by the genetic embarrassment that is Florida
anymore?), I was left stunned and appalled when this fight was dragged to my
doorstep, not only in my comfy left-wing niche, but straight to my old school district.
On Thursday July 20th, Chino Valley Unified School
District held a school board meeting to vote on their own proposal of parent
notification. The policy would require teachers to notify parents if their
student requests to be called by a different name, requests the use of different
pronouns, or attempts to use a gendered bathroom that does not align with their
sex assigned at birth. The crowd was divided as some noted the clear and
present dangers of forcing kids out into potentially volatile environments, others
pretending to fight for stronger familial units as one teacher shared “you
should never have a secret from your parents, and if you have an issue, you guys
need to work it through.” Ignoring the scores of countless LGBT+ youth that
have been mentally and physically abused, that have been forced from their
homes, sent to conversion therapy and religious reparative retreats, kids that
ultimately commit suicide, many showed their blind utopian privilege in the
matter. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond attended the
meeting to voice his opposition of policy, but was cut off by proponent and
board member Sonja Shaw, and booed by other attendees before being escorted out
of the meeting by security. Shaw has long argued under the pretense of the
protection of children, but fellow board member Andrew Cruz didn’t even attempt
to hide his own transphobic stance, stating “There has always been man and woman, and then you have
this transgender, and it is not going to stop there, and it is a mental illness.”
The policy passed 4-1.
The meeting
was held at Don Antonio Lugo High School. My alma mater. The policy itself
struck a chord, but the location, the practice, triggered a trauma. Long before
policies and mandates, before anyone was required to disclose the private
details of teens’ closeted existences, my teacher did so on her own accord when
she attempted to out me as gay to my mother on parent teacher conference night. I say
attempt not in that she tried and failed to disclose, but simply that she outed
me to my already aware mother. This, however, did not fare well for me as my mother was not only aware but staunchly against my chosen path to eternal damnation.
Earlier in the
semester, my teacher had spotted telling photos in my binder, revealing pictures
of my then celebrity crush Mariah Carey (to be fair, at that point in her
career, there were no photos of Mariah Carey that weren’t revealing). Though I
was not completely out, I was not the greatest at keeping my own secret, perhaps
a subconscious attempt to get out, or just flippant adolescent stupidity, who
knows. But the pictures were there and my conservative teacher clearly saw
them. She made no comment, asked no questions, just walked by and continued on
with the instruction for the day. Weeks later, during open house, my mother and
I sat at her table, and she ran down the brief synopsis of my academic
performance. Just as we were closing the meeting, she noted she had
one more concern to add. She turned to my mom and said “your daughter has inappropriate
photos of women in her folder, sexually revealing photos of women.
I thought you should be aware, and she needs to remove them immediately.” My face
flushed, shock took hold of me as I froze. The rage came later. But first my
mother’s came. My mother simply nodded, assured my teacher that the photos
would be taken out, and we rose and left. It was a quiet and tense procession back to the
car before my mother unleashed. The embarrassment, the utter humiliation of someone
else knowing that her daughter was gay, that someone reprimanded her daughter,
and by proxy, her, for gay behavior. Our already strained relationship stretched
to the point of breakage that night as I took my verbal lashing and tears silently slid down my burning cheeks
on the way home.
This transgression came about while I was already deep in the midst of emotional turmoil. My troubles in
adolescence were drawn from multiple facets: a history of complex trauma,
difficulty in school with severe bullying, discord at home. But my sexuality
was one of the main factors that contributed to a suicide attempt a year before
my teacher’s expose. My mother’s response when I first came out could have
saved or broken me; it was unfortunately the latter. It wasn’t my choice to
come out to her then, just like it wasn’t my choice when my teacher thought she
was beating me to the punch. But both times left me feeling alone, devastated,
and hopeless. It was never her place to commandeer my coming out process, it
was never her right to catapult me into familial crisis to clear her own
conscience of moral duty. She was wrong. And now that very school was ground
zero for a policy mandating that all teachers follow in her footsteps.
Chino is not the stereotypical right-wing breeding ground one would expect to foster such ignorance. In fact, I often credited my childhood experiences in the public school system with my broadened perspective of diversity, growing up with a student body comprising all cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds; the epitome of the great American melting pot. Perhaps they're another victim of the changing times, perhaps an unspoken policy that was always there, waiting in the wings to be called to center stage, but clearly there was never really any space held for us here. Here we are the minority amongst the minority. And the angry mob is coming for our children. This policy will isolate, devastate and render countless trans and nonbinary children fearful and hopeless. And if it can happen in the safe confines of blue California, it can happen anywhere.
