A Texas federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ students.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Reed O’Connor said the Biden administration lacked the authority to make the changes and accused it of pushing “an agenda wholly divorced from the text, structure, and contemporary context of Title IX.” Title IX is the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational settings.

“To allow [the Biden administration’s] unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress,” wrote O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee. “That is not how our democratic system functions.”

The Biden administration’s new guidelines, issued in April, expanded Title IX to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The changes would make schools and universities responsible for investigating a wider range of discrimination complaints. The rule changes came as several states, including Texas, have approved laws in recent years barring transgender student-athletes from participating in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity. The Biden administration hasn’t clarified whether the new guidance would apply in those cases.

Texas and several other states have the Biden administration over the new rule. . A month after the guidelines were released, Gov. called on school districts and universities .

“Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal,” said Texas Attorney General in a statement applauding Tuesday’s ruling. “Texas has prevailed on behalf of the entire Nation.”

An U.S. Education Department said in a statement it stands by its revised guidelines.

“Every student deserves the right to feel safe in school,” the statement reads.

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at .

One-third of LGBTQ youth outed to their families were more likely to report major symptoms of depression than those who weren’t, according to the University of Connecticut research. Transgender and nonbinary youth who were outed to their parents reported both the highest levels of depression symptoms and lowest amount of family support. 

The first research to link teens’ nonconsensual disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity to poor mental health, the report also found 69% said the experience was extremely stressful. Forcibly outed youth also reported low levels of family support. 

Since 2022, requiring schools to out transgender students to their families, potentially affecting more than 17,000 young people: Idaho, North Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama. Proponents say the measures are necessary to uphold parents’ right to information about their kids. LGBTQ and mental health advocates counter that the laws violate students’ privacy rights and can put them in danger of being abused or thrown out of their homes. 

Forced outing “is a relatively common experience, and we need to understand more about it,” says Peter McCauley, a doctoral candidate at UConn. “People should be coming out under their own terms.” 

The data, McCauley says, bolsters research on why queer students who are victimized in school often don’t seek help. According to cited in the new report, 44% of LGBTQ youth say they have not reported harassment to an adult at school out of fear their parents would learn their identity. A majority of sexual-minority teen boys were threatened with outing by peers.

The new report used data from ages 13 to 17 collected in 2017 by the Human Rights Campaign and the university’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. Two-thirds of respondents identified as cisgender, and 70% said their LGBTQ status was not involuntarily disclosed to their families. Of those not outed, 36% said their parents did not know they were not heterosexual. Nearly half of gender-nonconforming students said they were not out to their families. 

The survey found no significant racial differences in the stress of being outed. Youth whose parents had postgraduate degrees reported few depressive symptoms and high family support. 

Previous surveys by The Trevor Project, GLSEN and other advocacy groups consistently find that nearly all LGBTQ youth say they are harassed at school — which many nonetheless say is a more supportive environment than home. Fewer than four in 10 queer youth say their homes are LGBTQ-affirming.

There is evidence that people who disclose their sexual and gender identities in adolescence experience less depression and greater life satisfaction in adulthood. But not all teens who come out do so to their families. Some share with friends or trusted adults other than their parents. Youth are often reluctant to come out because they have heard their caregivers talk negatively about LGBTQ people or issues.

In addition to the eight states that mandate outing, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Montana and Kentucky — which collectively are home to a quarter-million LGBTQ youth — have new laws that critics say encourage involuntary disclosure of students’ sexual orientation or gender identity. These measures mandate discipline for educators who “encourage or coerce” children to withhold information from their families, stop schools from “discouraging or prohibiting” parental notification about pupils’ well-being and grant caregivers broad access to mental health and other records. 

Fights over forced outing are also playing out at a local level throughout the country. In at least six states, families who believe student privacy protections violate their parental rights . So far, none of the suits has succeeded.  

A Houston Landing investigation found that during the first two months after mandatory parental notification went into effect in August 2023 in Texas’ Katy Independent School District, . After the story was published, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into the district’s actions, which local discriminated on the basis of gender. 

At least six California districts require schools to disclose a range of information. In January, California Attorney General Rob Bonta that parental notification policies violate the state’s constitution and education laws. The admonition came after a judge’s October 2023 order temporarily halting the enforcement of an outing rule in Chino. 

As legislation seeking to restrict LGBTQ students’ rights has swept statehouses in recent years, the number of states fully administering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System — the nation’s chief survey of young people’s welfare — . Some states, , stopped participating altogether, while others refuse to ask questions about sexual orientation, gender identity, mental health and suicidality.

WASHINGTON — Twenty-six GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over changes to Title IX aiming to from discrimination in schools.

Less than a month after the U.S. Department of Education released its final rule seeking to “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” a wave of Republican attorneys general scrambled to challenge the measure.

The revised rule, which will go into effect on Aug. 1, requires schools “to take prompt and effective action when notified of conduct that reasonably may constitute sex discrimination in their education programs or activities.”

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The lawsuits hail from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

All of the attorneys general in the 26 states suing over the final rule are part of the Republicans Attorneys General Association.

Various advocacy groups and school boards have also tacked onto the states’ legal actions. The lawsuits carry similar language and arguments in vehemently opposing the final rule. They say the new regulations raise First Amendment concerns and accuse the rule of violating the .

LGBTQ+ advocates say the revised rule offers students a needed protection and complies with existing law.

“Our kids’ experience in schools should be about learning, about making friends and growing as a young person. LGBTQ+ students deserve those same opportunities,” Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal at the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in an emailed statement. “In bringing these lawsuits, these state attorneys general are attempting to rob LGBTQ+ students of their rights, illustrating a complete disregard for the humanity of LGBTQ+ students.”

GOP states band together against new regulations

In the most recent effort, sued the on Tuesday, accusing the Department of Education of seeking to “politicize our country’s educational system to conform to the radical ideological views of the Biden administration and its allies.”

The lawsuit claims that under the updated regulations, teachers, coaches and administrators would have to “acknowledge, affirm, and validate students’ ‘gender identities’ regardless of the speakers’ own religious beliefs on the matter in violation of the First Amendment.”

In another lawsuit, a group of Southern states —  — sued the administration in in Alabama over the new regulations.

Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall President Joe Biden “has brazenly attempted to use federal funding to force radical gender ideology onto states that reject it at the ballot box” since he took office.

“Now our schoolchildren are the target. The threat is that if Alabama’s public schools and universities do not conform, then the federal government will take away our funding,” Marshall said in a press release.

The lawsuit also drew praise from Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said “Biden is abusing his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and conflicts with the truth.” He added that the will “not comply” and instead “fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.”

Individual states sue the administration

Meanwhile, some states have opted to file individual lawsuits against the administration.

In Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration late last month in in Amarillo. Paxton filed an amended complaint earlier this week, with two new added.

In an , Paxton said the Lone Star State “will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology.”

Gentner Drummond against the Biden administration earlier this month in federal court in Oklahoma. The also filed a separate suit against the Biden administration.

A hodgepodge of states

In late April, Republican attorneys general in filed a lawsuit against the in federal court in Kentucky.

The states argued that the U.S. Education Department “has used rulemaking power to convert a law designed to equalize opportunities for both sexes into a far broader regime of its own making.”

also sued the Biden administration in late April, echoing the language seen in the other related lawsuits. Seventeen local in Louisiana also joined the states.

Earlier this month, also brought a collective to the final rule.

A spokesperson for the Education Department said the department does not comment on pending litigation but noted that “as a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally-funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations.” They added that the department looks forward “to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”

The department has yet to finalize a separate rule that establishes new criteria for transgender athletes. So far, 24 states have passed laws that ban transgender students from partaking in sports that align with their gender identity, according to the

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com. Follow West Virginia Watch on and .

In early May, Democrats in the House defeated the ” The bill was the latest effort to require public school teachers to answer parents when they ask about changes to their child’s gender identity.

But another bill is moving forward that supporters say would give parents more control over their children’s instruction in schools – and opponents say would intrude on classroom instruction.

would allow parents to opt their children out of any “instruction or program of” sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression.

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Currently, state law allows parents to withdraw their children from classes related to human sexual education. HB 1312 would expand that ability to apply to the additional topics.

Under the existing process, parents must notify the school district in writing that they object to the class material. And the parents must propose alternative instruction that is agreed upon by the school district, and pay for it themselves if there is a cost.

HB 1312 would expand the withdrawal and require school district staff to notify parents at least two weeks in advance of any material that might fall into the category.

Separately, the bill would prevent school districts from requiring that teachers withhold information from parents about their child’s well-being – including information about their sexuality. Individual teachers could still choose not to answer questions from parents about their child’s sexuality, but school districts could not make it a blanket policy under the bill.

The legislation, which passed the House 186-185, appears likely to clear the Republican-led Senate, too; the Senate Education Committee voted to recommend that it pass, in a 3-1, party-line vote.

Supporters say the bill would give parents a greater say in how their children learn about sensitive topics. But opponents said the bill would empower discriminatory views against LGBTQ+ people, and that the notification process would be disruptive to teachers.

“The bill seems to be targeting, and I think stigmatizing, any instruction concerning LGBTQ+ people, and I think that this language really sends the message to LGBTQ+ students that their feelings and identities are something to be shunned, feared, potentially even censored, or not even acknowledged,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

To Sen. Tim Lang, a Sanbornton Republican, the bill would encourage parents to communicate with their children about the topics – knowing that they were coming up in the curriculum – which he said could foster better connections between parents and children.

“Parents should have these discussions with their own children and not have teachers do this. This bill is the prompt for parents to have those conversations.”

Lang said the notification requirements would not prevent school districts from teaching the topics, but would rather allow parents to choose whether to participate in them. And he argued that the bill is not intended to allow parents to withdraw their child from materials that relate to LGBTQ+ people or movements in history.

“It’s just informative to parents,” he said. “Nothing stops the school from doing those classes. The class is allowed. That just says that if you do it though, because this is a sensitive topic, you need to notify parents.”

A class about Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978, would not fall under the definition of instruction of sexual orientation, Lang said, because Milk was a historical figure. But any instruction directed at students themselves that delved into their own sexual orientations or gender identity – such as that in a sex education class – would need to be disclosed, he said.

But representatives of teachers unions said the bill as written does not make those distinctions clear. Teachers might interpret the law to mean that any class that discussed the history of LGBTQ+ rights would need to be noticed ahead of time, opponents said. And English teachers might feel compelled to disclose any book that featured LGBTQ+ characters, and to empower parents to prevent their children from reading those books.

“If you pass this bill that expands the areas that a parent is required notification of and can opt a child out of, where will it stop?” said Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire. “… Can you study the pay gap between men and women in the same jobs in an economics class, which has to do with policies around gender discrimination?”

Lang disagreed with that characterization; books that happen to include transgender or non-heterosexual characters would not automatically invoke the disclosure requirement, he said. Only instruction that was specifically intended to teach students about sexual orientation or gender identity would need advanced notice, he said.

Brian Hawkins, director of government relations for the National Education Association of New Hampshire, argued that the topics the bill would add to the parental notification law were so broad that teachers would find the law difficult to follow.

“We think that 1312 is another piece of legislation that would significantly limit educators’ ability to teach, and provides far too many instances of vague language and framework to determine when certain actions violate the statute,” Hawkins said.

New Hampshire lawmakers first passed the law allowing parental opt-out from sex ed in 2017. In recent years, Republicans have pushed to allow more parental control over school library books, and have pressed for legislation to require teachers to answer any questions from parents about their child’s preferred pronouns or gender identity in school.

The latest parental notification bill effort, , was “indefinitely postponed” earlier this month, on a voting day when House Democrats had a majority over Republicans in the near-evenly divided chamber. That motion means that the bill is dead and that it cannot return as an amendment to another bill this legislative session.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

The new Title IX rule, which goes into effect Aug. 1, requires districts to promptly investigate complaints, even if they occur off school grounds, and to extend those protections to LGBTQ students. Districts must also train school employees about their obligations to address sex discrimination.

”These regulations make crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination includes all forms of sex discrimination. No one should have to give up their dreams of attending or finishing school because they’re pregnant. No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are or who they love.”

Left unresolved, however, is a second, and more controversial, rule that applies to transgender students’ participation in school sports, which some observers speculate the administration is until after the election.

That did not dampen partisan objections to what they did include, which is expected to fuel a new wave of litigation. Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House education committee, questioned the inclusion of transgender students under Title IX and said the rewrite rolls back protections for women.

“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” she said in a statement. “The rule also undermines existing due process rights, placing students and institutions in legal jeopardy and again undermining the protections Title IX is intended to provide.”

President Joe Biden pledged to overhaul Title IX even before he won the 2020 election, when he said that prevents discrimination against LGBTQ employees on the job guarantees students the same protections at school. But it took over two years for the department to release an initial draft describing its new approach. A proposed rule concerning trans students’ participation in sports followed in early 2023, but has yet to be sent to the White House for final review.

Officials have attributed the delays on both rules to the hundreds of thousands of comments it received from the public. But there’s also been intense backlash from Republicans, who say allowing transgender women to compete on teams consistent with their gender identity upends the original goal of Title IX. 

Advocates and in Congress argued the delay left victims at risk and discouraged some students from reporting incidents because they thought schools wouldn’t respond.

“For many students, a weakened Title IX harassment rule is all they’ve known through their college and high school experience,” said Shiwali Patel, a senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “Extremist politicians have increasingly attacked the rights of LGBTQI+ students, especially, transgender, nonbinary, and intersex students, attempting to codify discrimination through legislation and other policies.”  

On Friday, advocates welcomed the end of this first phase. Even so, many school districts might not be prepared to take the proactive approach that the rule requires. 

“It’s jaw-dropping to see things are still lax and so backwards,” said Sandra Hodgin, founder and CEO of Title IX Consulting Group, a Los Angeles-based firm. Some districts, she said, have outdated policies or don’t inform students how to file a grievance. 

Districts will have to act fast, she said, to ensure they have a Title IX coordinator who is up to speed on the new requirements and can “help them navigate all of it.” She noted a that found Liberty University, a Christian college, discouraged students from reporting sexual violence. “K-12 systems are going to be looking at things like that and hopefully say to themselves, ‘We don’t want to be that example.’ ”

In addition to requiring districts to promptly investigate any “sex-based hostile environment” in education programs both in and outside of school, the revised rule also removes the requirement for live hearings with cross-examination for sexual misconduct investigations. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos added to protect the due process rights of male students who argued they’d been unfairly accused of harassment or misconduct. 

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, dismissively noted the 2020 rule required schools to be “no more than not deliberately indifferent” to harassment.

The Biden administration has expected districts to comply with its applying Title IX protections to LGBTQ students even as Republican states filed litigation challenging that interpretation. Twenty-two states sued in 2022 over guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school nutrition, stating that programs receiving federal funds must follow or risk being reported to the Department of Justice. 

Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he expects “lawsuits from state attorneys general within days, or at longest weeks.” Some, he said, will challenge the administration’s decision to extend Title IX’s protections to include gender identity.  the rule could violate free speech if an offensive comment or a teacher’s refusal to use a preferred pronoun, for example, is perceived as discrimination. In a Thursday call with reporters, a senior administration official said if such a situation “limits or denies [a student’s] access to education,” the person’s behavior could create a hostile environment.

Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, however, said fear of litigation shouldn’t prevent school officials from following the law.

“If I was their council, I would remind them that they’re on the wrong side of the law if they decide to discriminate against LGBTQ students,” she said. “If you want to protect your school against liability, the smart thing to do would be to not choose to discriminate.” 

In a decision this week, a federal appeals court agreed with the Biden administration’s interpretation that Title IX protections for LGBTQ students can apply to athletics. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit blocked West Virginia’s law banning trans students from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

focuses on Becky Pepper Jackson, a 13-year-old transgender girl and middle school track athlete, who has identified as a girl since third grade. 

Last year, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act to go into effect, but the court put it on hold. Buchert said she wouldn’t be surprised if Morrissey appeals the Fourth Circuit ruling as well.

In its Title IX draft for sports, the education department attempted to carve out a compromise, avoiding an across-the-board inclusion of trans students on teams consistent with their gender identity. But it didn’t also didn’t ban such policies outright. The draft states that schools and colleges could limit transgender students’ participation in specific sports — particularly at the more competitive high school and college levels. But in the elementary grades, and likely into middle school, most students would be able to play sports consistent with their gender identity.

Buckert said advocates hope the department will “issue a strong rule that provides clarity about where the department stands on those issues.”

, the Republican presidential nominee, has said he won’t “allow men in women’s sports.” If he wins, some observers wouldn’t be surprised to see him rescind any attempt by the Biden administration to allow trans students to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. 

“We’re looking at a very polarized Title IX conversation,” she said.

In a move condemned by advocates and lawmakers as an attack on trans students who fear any change to could also increase bullying and violence, passed 8-3 Wednesday evening. 

“We know sports build self confidence and a sense of belonging, which is especially critical for this group of students. Rather than excluding our trans students we ought to be working together to wrap our arms around them. They need love, encouragement and support, not political attacks,” said NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks Wednesday evening. 

After citing statistics that one in three trans youth are suicidal and one in three are survivors of abuse, Banks called the resolution “despicable” and, in an exasperated tone, posed a question: “Would you just leave the kids alone?” 

At a packed District 2 community education council meeting, ACLU civil rights lawyer and District 2 parent Chase Strangio pointed out the current gender guidelines align with state law. “So this resolution does nothing but target trans young people,” Santiago said. 

“I will not sit idly by and see the same misinformed efforts be pushed in my own school district. I will not let NYC, the birthplace and home of some of the most powerful trans people in history, be yet another testing ground for rhetoric that expels my community,” said Strangio, who is trans.

The resolution urges that a reevaluation committee be formed to include female athletes, parents, coaches, medical professionals and evolutionary biology experts, and claims current guidelines “present challenges” particularly to girls. The resolution’s primary sponsor, Maud Maron, said the resolution is in essence asking to hear from all “impacted voices,” according to . 

Given the Chancellor’s condemnation and that community education councils are advisory, it is unlikely DOE leaders will follow the council’s recommendation. 

In December, Banks also used the word “despicable” to describe comments made by Maron in a private chat, which included “trans kids don’t exist.” Parents and advocates have grown increasingly frustrated with the Chancellor’ broken promise to “take action,” made more than three months ago. 

In the time since Banks made his pledge, Community Board 2 issued a resolution demanding the DOE acknowledge and require parent leaders adhere to respective guidelines on bullying and fostering a safe learning environment for all students, particularly LGBTQ students. The late February resolution also encouraged penalties for parents found in violation of Chancellor regulations, including verbal and written warnings and/or suspension of involvement.

Separately, several District 2 CEC members wrote in a February email to Banks that went unanswered that parents’ and students’ rights and protections “continue to be unabashedly violated.” 

In the district which includes hyper-liberal neighborhoods like Chelsea and Greenwich Village, the resolution and restricting LGBTQ student rights doesn’t hold broad public support, parents say. 

“There really wasn’t a debate in our community,” said district 2 parent and CEC member Gavin Healy. “It was very much like ‘we don’t like this, we don’t want this.’”

Dozens of community members spoke out against the gender resolution with only one expressing support. All but two of 175 emails received by the council in advance of its vote were against its passage. 

At least 25 states, concentrated in the south and midwest, have introduced consistent with their gender identity. 

But the resolution’s introduction and passage in New York City is unsurprising, given parent leaders with conservative-leaning education desires endorsed by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum make up . The group, known as PLACE, was co-founded by Maron. 

“I think they really want something that they can take back to Moms for Liberty and use it as a PR stunt — look, even in Manhattan there’s this concern,” said Healy. “It has to do with that national, moral panic that they are fueling. It’s fodder.”

Conservative parent voices have been rising in the city. Moms for Liberty, which advocates for parental rights and is categorized as an extremist hate organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, opened its first chapter in NYC last year. Maron spoke on a the group held in January. 

This particular gender resolution is “legally unenforceable and dangerous,” said David Bloomfield, Brooklyn College education, law and public policy professor. A is currently underway in suburban Nassau County, New York, where a attempted to ban trans women and girls from public athletic facilities. 

Bloomfield said Maron was “…exercising her rights as an individual and as an elected official to state her policy preferences, which have been no secret. She’s following through essentially on what her voters asked for,” adding in the past, chancellors such as Richard Carranza have

The gender resolution passed on the same night the council passed another seemingly at odds, one affirming support of LGBTQ students and families. Maron was the only council member to abstain from voting on the resolution in support of LGBTQ students. 

Since December, a petition to have Maron removed from the Stuyvesant High School leadership team has . It circulated after she was quoted in a NY Post article calling an anonymous student author a “coward,” accusing them of “Jew hatred,” calling for their name to be public for their op-ed in the student newspaper.

Many parents and students feel her actions constituted bullying and threaten free speech at the school.

“The mission is the kids. Getting through the classes. Keeping them safe … They just don’t need this added pressure,” said one parent speaking on condition of anonymity. “[Maron] politicizes every situation she can and I feel like any statement she makes is for her own personal gain. It’s not for the school, it’s not for the students.” 

Reem Khalifa, a junior at Stuyvesant, said recent events have been disheartening and made her “fearful for the people around me. Do they recognize and hold the same beliefs?” 

Maron did not return a request for comment. 

“The DOE is trying to shield themselves from liability,” said Healy, “even if that means leaving people in the community vulnerable.” 

Attorneys representing a group of Florida students, parents and teachers have settled a lawsuit challenging the state’s prohibition on classroom instruction involving LGBTQ people and topics. While lessons specifically about sexual orientation and gender identity are still banned, the agreement will allow in-school classroom discussions of such topics, require schools to prohibit discrimination and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make it clear that the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law does not extend to the banning of books.

Further, the agreement stipulates that instruction must be neutral on LGBTQ matters, meaning, for example, that lessons cannot depict heterosexuality as preferable. 

“The state of Florida has now made it clear that LGBTQ+ kids, parents and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay,” the lead plaintiffs’ attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement.

In addition to representing the Florida plaintiffs, Kaplan represented Edie Windsor, whose case resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. More recently, she handled E. Jean Carroll’s against former President Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also the settlement a “major win,” noting that his Parental Rights in Education Act remains in effect. The law originally prohibited LGBTQ-related instruction in kindergarten through third grade. Last year, it was amended to outlaw most lessons in all grades. 

Because the law and related state regulations were broad and vague, school administrators have removed pride flags and stickers from classrooms, made teachers empty bookshelves and done little to quell LGBTQ parents’ fears that their children may be punished for talking about their families. 

“If you read the early drafts of the Florida bill, it really seems as if any discussion at all was prohibited,” says Katie Blankenship, director of the state’s chapter of the free speech advocacy group PEN America. “Teachers were told never to discuss it in school if their families had same-sex partners. Go back in the closet, stay in the closet or find another place to work.”

Florida’s Board of Education issued a rule saying teachers could lose their licenses if they violated restrictions on instruction — even though the law did not include such sanctions — or if their classrooms contained books with LGBTQ characters or themes. 

In January 2023, the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ data clearinghouse located at UCLA, showing that almost 9 in 10 queer parents feared the law’s impact on their families, with more than half considering leaving the state and a fourth reporting they had been harassed since its passage.

Under this week’s agreement, education officials must send every school board in the state a copy of the settlement, which outlines numerous ways in which in-school discussion of LGBTQ topics is allowed, as well as officials’ legal obligations to protect students and educators from harassment and discrimination. 

The document defines classroom instruction as “the formal work of teaching” and lists “teaching an overview of modern gender theory or a particular view of marriage equality” as an example of something prohibited. Not banned is “mere discussion” of gay or transgender people or same-sex couples in class, or a student’s decision to address sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The statute would also leave teachers free to ‘respond if students discuss … their identities or family life,’ ‘provide grades and feedback’ if a student chooses ‘LGBTQ identity’ as an essay topic and answer ‘questions about their families,’ ” the agreement states. It adds that “just as no one would suggest that references to numbers in a history book constitute ‘instruction on mathematics,’ ” a literary reference to LGBTQ people in a book does not violate the law “any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is ‘instruction on apple farming.’ ” 

Blankenship says she expects compliance will be uneven for some time. 

“I anticipate different levels of eagerness to apply this settlement, depending on the demographics of each community,” she says. School leaders in “some places will be delighted, while in some places it will be a struggle.”

The settlement does not apply to what PEN calls “educational gag orders” in other states, nor will it necessarily have an impact on increasing levels of teacher self-censorship that researchers have found even in states where no law or rule limits what can be taught. 

Following the Florida law’s 2022 passage, legislators in numerous states introduced bills restricting classroom speech. At least 15 states enacted , and hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills are under consideration in statehouses in the current legislative season. 

While the letter of each law may differ, gay and transgender advocacy groups say the overall impact nationwide has been a marked increase in in-school anti-LGBTQ violence and harassment, fear and confusion leading to teacher self-censorship and the end of supportive programs such as gay-straight alliances.

The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the death of nonbinary Oklahoma teen Nex Benedict after a fight in a high school girls’ bathroom Feb. 7. An LGBTQ educator in that district had been singled out for criticism by state officials for his support of queer youth.

A 2022 Oklahoma law forced Nex to use the girls’ bathroom, a space considered unsafe for transgender youth. A coroner has ruled the teen’s Feb. 8 death a suicide.

Data from the school climate advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project reveals rising rates of anti-LGBTQ speech and actions not just in states where the new laws are in effect, but in classrooms in places previously known for supporting gay and trans students. 
Referring to the settlement as “very drinkable lemonade,” Blankenship says it’s a start: “The has now been popped.”

Updated March 13

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma has ruled Nex Benedict’s death a suicide caused by a combination of antihistamines and an antidepressant. A full toxicology report is expected by the end of the month. 

Updated Feb. 27

More than 350 civil rights groups, LGBTQ advocates and high-profile figures are of Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and calling for a U.S. Department of Education investigation into the Feb. 8 death of a transgender student following an altercation in a school bathroom. The organization coordinating the push, the Human Rights Campaign, had previously called for a . 

“Long before Nex Benedict’s tragic death, Superintendent Walters’s troubling history of transphobic and racist behavior consistently put Oklahoma’s students, staff and teachers at risk,” Kelley Robinson, the group’s president, said in a statement. “Now, his callous response to Nex’s death makes it clearer than ever that he is unfit for the role — and is in fact a danger to Oklahoma’s youth.”

Oklahoma’s Rainbow Youth Project said it had received nearly 1,000 calls from LGBT youth experiencing mental health crises — almost all of them in the last week, after national news outlets reported Nex’s death. The organization pointed out that the number of such contacts has mushroomed in the months since Walters circulated and other claiming transgender students pose a danger to schools. In a statement following a groundswell of national attention to Nex’s death, Walters accused the “radical left” of . 

Owasso, Oklahoma, police officials had said preliminary autopsy reports found the 16-year-old’s death was not the result of “trauma” but later they did not mean to suggest that the fight, which happened , was not the cause.

On Feb. 7, a 16-year-old nonbinary student at Owasso High School in Oklahoma was involved in an altercation in a girls’ bathroom. On Feb. 8, Nex Benedict, who used they/them pronouns and whose family claims roots in the Choctaw Nation, was pronounced dead at a local hospital. 

Nearly two weeks later, after a flurry of social media posts from small LGBTQ publications, the U.S. edition of The Independent with Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, who said Nex had endured months of bullying at school over their gender identity. Benedict said Nex told her they and another transgender student had been in a fight in the bathroom with three older girls and that Nex hit their head on the floor. 

Within 24 hours of the interview’s publication, numerous news outlets had begun sifting through an avalanche of often contradictory statements from school officials, law enforcement and the Benedicts’ friends and neighbors.

While the facts will likely take a long time to establish, advocates say one thing is clear: The legislative assault on LGBTQ rights in Oklahoma over the last two years — including the 2022 passage of a bathroom bill that forced Nex into a space considered unsafe for trans youth — has left students to fend for themselves in schools that feel increasingly hostile. 

Benedict said she was called to the school the afternoon of Feb. 7 and told that Nex had been suspended for two weeks. There were visible bruises and scratches on the teen’s face and head. Benedict drove to a hospital, where she asked for help filing a police report. The school should have called both an ambulance and the police, she said.  

In issued after the news story’s appearance, the Owasso Public Schools said Nex had been examined by the school nurse and that Benedict had been advised to have them examined at a medical facility. The other students did not need care. District policy is to inform parents of students involved in fights that they have the option of filing a police report, the statement added.

Officials with the Owasso Police Department this week said preliminary autopsy results showed Nex did not die as a result of “trauma,” in a search warrant filed Wednesday that they “suspect foul play.” A police spokesperson that the department had video from a camera in the school hallway showing Nex before and after the incident. There was no word at the time of publication about what the video showed.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona decried the incident on social media, calling for safer schools.  

I can’t put into words the grief that I feel for Nex, their family, and their community. As an educator and father, I’m devastated. Violence has no place in school. It is our responsibility to protect all students by creating spaces where they feel safe to be their true selves.

— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona)

The teen’s death is the latest in a string of incidents in Oklahoma, which over the last two years has enacted at least four laws restricting the rights of LGBTQ youth. The 2022 bathroom law requires students to use the restroom that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth, mandates that schools discipline those who don’t comply and reduces state funding by 5% the following fiscal year for any district that does not impose consequences. 

In 2022, Chaya Raichik, who runs the far-right X account Libs of TikTok, posted a video of one of Nex’s teachers expressing support for LGBTQ students. “If your parents don’t love and accept you for who you are this Christmas, f***,” former eighth-grade teacher Tyler Wrynn said in his own TikTok post. “I’m your parents now. I’m proud of you.” The teacher after his post became a flashpoint because of its pro-LGBTQ stance. 

In August, Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters came under criticism for about a Tulsa librarian that was blamed for a bomb threat against the elementary school where she worked. Last month, he appointed Raichik to a state committee tasked with screening school library materials for “pornographic” and “woke” content — a move he said was part of an effort to “make schools safer.” Raichik this week accused “” of politicizing Nex’s death.

According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, there are about 2,000 transgender youth in Oklahoma. 

Whether exactly what transpired in the Owasso High School bathroom may never be determined, Nex’s death has fueled the ongoing debate over the impact a wave of “hostile” laws has had on queer students’ safety and schools’ willingness or ability to protect them, says Cait Smith, the director of LGBTQI+ policy at the Center for American Progress. Of the 667 bills introduced throughout the country in 2023 seeking to curtail rights based on sexual orientation or gender identity, 63% specifically targeted young people, she says. 

“There is a larger concern here, a larger trend that we have to be talking about,” says Smith. “We often call these hostile school climate bills. Schools in states where they have these laws passing [are] having to deal with policies that make it harder for them to create schools that are safe and affirming — let alone schools that allow students to thrive and feel comfortable enough to love school and do well at school.”

Though the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 declined to that found students are entitled to use the restroom that matches their identity, trans bathroom use has continued to face challenges in legislatures and courts. At least seven bills restricting trans bathroom access passed last year, Smith says. Five of them were school-specific.

Supporters of bathroom bans say they are needed to protect cisgender girls and women from assault by trans people. 

LGBTQ students’ fears of poorly monitored school spaces such as locker rooms, stairwells and lunchrooms predate the current ideological firestorm. In a survey of LGBTQ youth experiences conducted in 2021 — just as the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation was beginning to sweep statehouses — the advocacy group GLSEN found that 68% of queer students felt unsafe at school. Bathrooms topped the list of places they avoid, with 45% saying they feared using the restroom. 

The has linked a lack of bathroom access to increased mental and physical health issues among transgender youth and adults. Nearly 6 in 10 avoid using public restrooms out of fear, and 14% say they have been assaulted in bathrooms.

, the number of students who reported hearing negative remarks from teachers about sexual orientation doubled between 2019 and 2021, to 69%. The number who said they heard pejorative comments from adults about trans people rose from 46% to 80% during the same time period. Only 1% reported not hearing slurs from classmates.

Fourteen percent reported being physically assaulted in school because of their sexual orientation and 13% over their gender expression. More than half said they did not report the harassment or violence to school administrators, whom only 16% of LGBTQ students perceive as supportive. Only 6% believe their school’s anti-bullying policies include sexual orientation and gender identity. 

The ACLU of Oklahoma has and four school districts, charging the bathroom law is discriminatory and violates students’ educational rights. The case is pending in federal court. 

North Carolina’s adoption of the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” law has led to school-based policies and practices that discriminate against LGBTQ students, the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) alleges in a against the State Board of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

The complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division on Tuesday. It contends that the state’s public schools are “systematically marginalizing” LGBTQ students with the mandates included in Senate Bill 49. The law requires educators to alert parents if their child changes their name or pronoun at school. It also restricts instruction about gender identity and sexuality in K-4 classrooms.

“Under the leadership of the North Carolina State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction, local school districts are barring LGBTQ-affirming content, outing transgender students, erecting barriers to LGBTQ students receiving needed health care at school as well as support from educators and prohibiting transgender girls from playing athletics consistent with their gender identity,” CSE wrote in its complaint on behalf of LGBTQ students.

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The complaint is critical of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for making what CSE contends are “homophobic and transphobic” remarks. The complaint shares several Robinson quotes about homosexuality including in which he said: “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

CSE is also critical of State Superintendent Catherine Truitt for her support of SB 49 and House Bill 574, the so-called “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which restricts transgender females from playing middle school, high school and college sports.

“While she [Truitt] avoids ranting about “filth,” she agrees with the Lieutenant Governor [Robinson] that transgender people do not really exist,” the complaint states. “ She consistently refers to transgender women as “biological males” and speaks consistently of “gender preference.”

CSE asked federal officials to protect students.

“SBE’s and DPI’s implementation of SB 49 and HB 574 is discriminating against LGBTQ students in North Carolina,” the complaint states. “This discrimination has created a hostile educational environment that harms LGBTQ students on a daily basis and, in so doing, violates Title IX.”

Educators have been left in an impossible position due to SB 49 mandates and a lack of guidance from the state education leaders about how to implement them, the complaint said.

“They [educators] must choose between, on the one hand, following state leaders’ orders or, on the other hand, federal and state legal obligations as well as their professional obligations to their students,” the complaint states.

NCDPI spokeswoman Blair Rhoades told NC Newsline in December that the department provided information about SB 49 to more than 350 participants via a webinar. Rhoades  the department has provide for guidance with the lengthy title: “Parents Guide to Student Achievement (PSGA) Considerations from NCDPI: Based on Parents’ Bill of Rights – SB49; Session Law 2023-106.”

Meanwhile, the complaint included dozens of testimonials from students, parents, educators and other who shared stories about how the mandates are harming students by forcing LGBTQ students back into the closet and preventing them from receiving supportive services.

One high school student reported: “I personally have a supportive family who has put my preferred name in PowerSchool, but my friends are no longer feeling safe going by their preferred name and pronouns because they’re afraid that they will be outed to their families who are not supportive. These friends are scared for their safety and well-being.”

Democratic critics of the law complained that the legislation would have a chilling effect on student and teacher relationships at a time when student mental health is a top concern. But Republican supporters said it grew out of parental concerns about school curriculum parents saw when children were learning from home during the pandemic.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro School member Mike Sharp said SB 49 needs more work.

“I think a logical next step then would be to send this back to the policy committee with a clear directive from us that says: take out the parts of this that are harmful to children, rewrite it, ignore whether you’re breaking SB 49,” Sharp said in testimonials shared by CSE.

Last week, Sharp’s board declined to create a procedure to alert parents before allowing a student to use a different name or pronoun at school. It also declined to prohibit instruction about gender identity and sexuality in K-4 classrooms.

Truitt said there could be consequences for not following the law.

“No. Sorry. You may not break the laws you don’t like – even in Chapel Hill. I worked with the legislature to pass the Parents Bill of Rights to protect children and empower parents and it’s unacceptable for Chapel Hill or anyone else to ignore it,” Truitt tweeted last week.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on and .

In high school, Alice Wade spent a year planning how they would come out as transgender. And to be safe, they planned what to do if it went poorly.

“When I was 15, I made plans for what I would do, and which friend’s house I would go to, and how I would work to make enough money to live on my own if I had to become homeless,” Wade told New Hampshire lawmakers earlier this month.

Wade wanted to do it on their own terms. The process was gradual: first, Wade told their close friends, then a teacher, then their mom. Finally, they felt they could tell their dad. That was crucial, Wade said.

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“While it wasn’t perfect, if my parents had found out before I was ready to tell them, I don’t know if I’d be alive here to give you my testimony,” Wade testified.

The experience of coming out in high school – and the choice of when to inform parents  – is once again at the center of a legislative fight. State Senate Republicans are pushing for a bill this year that would require schools to disclose information to parents who ask for it, echoing efforts in the past two years that have fallen short. LGBTQ rights groups have said the bill could out a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to their parents before they are ready to tell them.

would require any school staff member to answer any written requests sent by parents for information about their children within 10 days of receiving the request.

School employees who feel that responding to such a request “would put that student at risk of endangerment of physical harm, abuse, or neglect” must file a report to the Division for Children, Youth, and Families within 48 hours, the bill states.

The bill adds that any violation of the requirement to provide the information must be referred to the school board to determine disciplinary action, which can include termination. Under the bill, if a parent isn’t satisfied with the school board’s chosen disciplinary action, they can appeal the decision to the state board of education, which could make its own final call to terminate the staff person.

Sen. Tim Lang, the Sanbornton Republican sponsoring the bill, likened it to the state’s right-to-know law, RSA 91-A. That law requires public officials to produce documents and information when requested by a member of the public, with exceptions for confidentiality.

“This bill extends that to the school setting,” Lang said during a press conference held by Senate Republicans this month.

“The school is obligated to respond in an honest and complete answer, and not hide any information from the parent,” he said.

During a Jan. 3 hearing, some members of the public agreed. Bridgewater’s Aubrey Freedman, who is gay, doesn’t support pronoun changes in school.

“It’s all about honesty,” said Freedman. “Nobody’s outing anybody, (but) if the parents want to ask the school personnel a question, they should be honest. I don’t think that’s a big deal.”

But advocates and young trans people countered that they believed the bill would result in children being outed, and would complicate the trust that teachers are trying to build with students.

Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, a teachers union, argued that parents and educators already work well together, and that the bill would “fracture” that relationship.

Tuttle said the bill’s disclosure requirements would override the chain of command within schools, and could interfere with collective bargaining agreements. And she cited a recent report by a legislative committee studying the teacher shortage that found that a climate of culture and fear has helped drive educators from the profession.

“We believe Senate Bill 341 would only be an extension of the sort of legislation that the committee found was driving current and prospective educators away from the profession,” she said.

Barrett Christina, executive director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association, took issue with the appeals process to the state Board of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor and Executive Council, calling them “unelected bureaucrats.”

Sara Smith, a retired teacher, also opposed the bill. “I fundamentally believe in honesty, and if anybody asked me to lie I wouldn’t,” she said.

But Smith said as a teacher, her fundamental purpose “was to teach children to think for themselves.” Part of that effort involved building a “scaffolding” and a foundation of trust among students that the teacher would be there for them.

Teachers often have an open door for students to discuss personal issues, Smith said, which can help in the discovery of abuse and neglect issues. “But once this law is enacted, students can no longer expect their teachers to keep confidential issues they have shared with them,” Smith said.

The bill comes on the heels of two major attempts in 2022 and 2023 to pass similar legislation. Each time, the effort was thwarted in the House, which was narrowly dominated by Republicans in the 2021-2022 session and is now nearly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Opponents to the bills have raised concerns that requiring a school to divulge information to parents about a student’s sexual orientation or gender expression at school could lead to dangerous situations of abuse or neglect if the parents disapprove. Lang said the bill was intended to give an option for school officials to not inform parents and instead file a DCYF report if abuse is likely.

But Chris Erchull, staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), said the bill as currently written does not allow school staff the option to stop informing parents, even if they file the DCYF report.

In an interview last week, Lang said he listened to some of the concerns and will be making tweaks to the bill in an upcoming amendment.

Lang plans to add language to make clear that if teachers suspect abuse or harm could result, they do not need to disclose the information to parents, as long as they file a report with DCYF.

And Lang said he would narrow the bill to apply to certified school staff, such as teachers and administrators, and not other staff members like bus drivers or custodians.

“I heard what people said,” he said. “I’m adjusting accordingly – the things I think are reasonable requests.”

Linds Jakows, an advocate from their father after being involuntarily outed in high school, said the bill would disrupt a delicate process.

“Many LGBTQ young people feel a strong need to come out to peers first, regardless of whether or not their parents are affirming,” Jakows said. “… This bill doesn’t explicitly name situations related to trans or LGBTQ youth like last year’s bill, but we know the forced outing will be the same.”

The bill is likely to spur months of acrimonious testimony and contentious floor votes. To Lang, the bill is simply about strengthening communication.

“I think we’ve lost sight of the fact that when we talk about trusting adults in the school system, the trust is between the parent and the teacher and the parent and the school system,” Lang said “… And so this bill seeks to make sure that that trust is not eroded.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

During a heavy snowstorm Tuesday that caused schools to close all over Wisconsin, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly spoke by telephone with the Wisconsin Examiner about the health of the state’s public education system, student achievement, the growth of school vouchers, political attacks on diversity and her hopes for the coming year.

Parents bill of rights

As we spoke, Republican legislators were preparing to hold an executive session Thursday on , a “Parents Bill of Rights” that encourages lawsuits by parents who feel that their rights have been violated because they were not informed about medical services offered at school or about the discussion of “controversial subjects”  in class, including gender identity and racism, or because they were not given the authority to determine the names and pronouns used to address their children.

Under the bill, a parent or guardian who successfully asserts a claim “may recover declaratory relief, injunctive relief, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, and up to $10,000 for any other appropriate relief.”

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“The reality is that meaningful parental engagement is happening every single day between our teachers and their students’ families and caregivers,” Underly said. The Parents Bill of Rights “is designed to shut down discussion and creates an environment of fear for our educators because it inserts them into a culture war that no one should be fighting in the first place.”

She sees the bill as part of a larger pattern of attacks on public schools and democracy itself.

“You think about the things that the Legislature picks up on,” Underly said. “Let’s attack libraries. Let’s attack the curriculum. Let’s attack teachers, let’s attack school boards because they wanted to wear masks during the virus. … I think it’s really a way to make sure that we instill distrust in our public institutions.”

There is “a lot of misinformation out there,” Underly added, propagated by people and groups insinuating that schools provide inappropriate materials to kids. “That’s by design. Misinformation is designed to stoke outrage.”

Another Republican bill, , would require public schools to comply with written requests from residents in their districts to inspect a textbook, curriculum or instructional material within 14 days.

“That’s really burdensome,” said Underly. “Let me just say right now, if you have a question about curriculum, you can access that. You contact the school, the principal and the teacher will work to get you the information.”

School voucher lawsuit

The message that public schools are “failing” and do not adequately serve Wisconsin families has been promoted for decades by advocates for school privatization, including the Bradley Foundation, which also Milwaukee’s first-in-the-nation school voucher program. That program, which started out serving 350 kids, has mushroomed to include more than 52,000 students in the statewide, Racine and Milwaukee programs.

In December, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear a challenging Wisconsin’s private school voucher program. The suit, sponsored by Minocqua Brewing Co. owner Kirk Bangstad, named Underly, in her official capacity, as a defendant. It charged that taxpayer-financed private school vouchers are a huge financial drain, pushing local public school districts into a “death spiral” and that they violate the state constitution’s promise to provide high-quality public schools for every child.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Underly said she couldn’t speak to the constitutionality of school vouchers. But, she added,  “I believe that we cannot afford two school systems.”

“We need to robustly fund the system that serves all kids,” she said, “and that’s our public schools.”

(Late last year Underly another recent Supreme Court lawsuit, filed by teachers and other public employees challenging Act 10, the 2011 law that took away most collective bargaining rights from most public employees: “Returning collective bargaining rights to public sector employees will strengthen our educator workforce, and strengthening our educator workforce will improve our children’s education and create a stronger future for our state,” she said in a statement.)

Even though the voucher lawsuit was kicked back down to lower court, Underly said it could still help raise awareness  that, unlike public schools, which are open to every child, Wisconsin’s school choice programs “are allowing these schools that accept vouchers to discriminate against students, students with disabilities, students who are LGBTQ+.”

Worrying about LGBTQ kids

Underly said she worries “all the time” about the well-being of LGBTQ kids in Wisconsin. She cited data showing that “these kids who struggle to feel included or to be seen, you know, their mental health struggles are higher.”

“At the heart of all this I think what I would like people to realize, and I think many people do, [is that] at the center of all of this is a child.”

“And when we attack them,” she added, “when we tell them, you know, their identity doesn’t matter or we have to take down symbols that show that they’re included, that’s hurting them. … It’s saying that you don’t belong here or you’re not wanted. … I just want to tell people, these are kids. These are human beings. And they deserve love and empathy.”

Missing the Regents’ vote to cut back DEI

Along with recent efforts to ban books and remove LGBTQ Pride flags, Wisconsin schools have been at the center of a battle over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Underly, who serves on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, was absent for the vote in which the Regents reversed themselves and agreed to legislative Republicans’ demands that they eliminate DEI positions in exchange for promised funding for faculty raises and capital improvements.

Underly was out of the country, traveling with her elderly mother in Austria, on a vacation she said she’d had to reschedule several times, when the Regents voted 9-8 to reject the deal limiting diversity positions on Saturday, Dec. 9. She was still out of the country the following Wednesday, Dec 13, when the Regents reversed their decision in a second vote.

Between votes, Underly issued a statement asking that the second vote be postponed so she could attend. She had intermittent internet access, she explained, and wouldn’t be available at the meeting time. But the Regents went ahead without her.

“Part of my frustration with that is that my position on diversity, equity and inclusion is very clear,” Underly said. “I think people knew how I was going to vote. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it …  I wasn’t part of any of the discussions.”

Like Gov. Tony Evers, Underly doesn’t believe there should have been any further negotiations between the Regents and the Legislature over funds that were already approved as part of the state budget.

Now, as Assembly Speaker Robin Vos pledges to eliminate every trace of DEI throughout the state, Underly said, “It’s definitely that slippery slope argument. You give in on one thing, and they certainly will want to take more.”

Still, she added, “these programs aren’t going to go away. … They exist to make sure that every citizen in the state of Wisconsin has access to higher education. That includes veterans. That includes kids from rural Wisconsin who want to study to become doctors. It includes women. It includes kids who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Will UW hold onto minority scholarship programs and other targets of Republicans in the Legislature, and somehow meet its agreement to eliminate the language of DEI without actually getting rid of programs that promote diversity?

“I don’t know,” Underly said. “I guess in my role as Regent what I do look forward to is having these conversations and in many ways protecting these positions [including] the scholarships and [other] components.”

What about voucher schools that serve underserved kids?

On the flip side, what does Underly make of the argument made by school choice advocates like Madison’s One City independent charter school founder Kaleem Caire, that Wisconsin’s between Black and white students is unacceptable and the lack of diversity among teaching staff contributes to a lousy environment in the local public school district for Black kids?

“I’m not going to say that his heart’s not in the right place,” said Underly. “We want all kids to be successful, and he is in a community and he interacts with children of color and their families all the time.”

Still, “I don’t think the answer is pulling kids out of public schools and funding private schools,” Underly said. “I would argue the opposite and say we need to put the resources in the public schools so that all kids can be successful.”

Working on teacher training, curriculum, adjusting the length of the school day or the school year are all “ways we could address the achievement gap, and the opportunity gaps that we see, especially among children of color,” she said.

“This is really where we get at the root of what equity is,” Underly added, “getting the schools what they need, so that their kids can be successful, and that’s not going to be the same thing in every school or in every community.”

Poverty and student success

Among the biggest equity issues public schools must address, Underly said, is poverty.

Children facing housing insecurity and hunger are “not going to score as well on a standardized test,” she said.

“What public schools have done is they’ve tried to level that playing field. They have provided food for kids, they provide stability, whether it’s for in-school or after-school programs, they provide the art and the music and these enrichment classes that kids in poverty perhaps can’t afford to get outside of school.”

The whole purpose of public schools is to create a more equitable society by providing opportunity to kids whose families live in poverty. “That’s a fundamental value of democracy,” said Underly. “That’s inclusion — making sure that not just the wealthy have access to these things.”

Fundamentally, Underly agrees with the plaintiffs in the anti-voucher lawsuit that the private school voucher movement undermines democracy. “Public schools are among the most democratic institutions that you can think of because they accept everybody, regardless of their language, their socioeconomic status, their gender, who their parents are, their immigrant status. Because that’s what inclusion is. And when you have these outside groups attack public schools, they’re really attacking that democratic institution.”

School report cards

The latest round of released by DPI showed students test scores continuing to improve after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.

None of Wisconsin’s school districts is rated as “failing” in the latest assessments and 94% of districts meet or exceed  expectations. But critics say DPI is setting the bar too low. Will Flanders of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty told : “While DPI may tout there has been an increase across the board, we still have districts like Milwaukee where proficiency rates are less than 20% and somehow that seems to be meeting expectations.”

Public school student proficiency rates for 2022-23 were better than in 2020-21 and 2021-22. But they still seem low:  38.9% were proficient in English language arts and 37.4% were proficient in math. Students participating in the state’s Private School Choice Programs, however, had even lower proficiency rates of 22.1% in English language arts and 17.9% in math in 2022-23.

Student assessment scores are only one factor in determining district report card scores, a spokesperson for DPI explains. For districts with high percentages of low-income students, growth is weighted more significantly than achievement — a .

“Our public education system should be about getting every kid what they need – in the way they need it – in order to achieve success,” Underly said.

In announcing the latest assessment data, DPI pointed to a that found Wisconsin’s performance standards in reading and math were among the highest in the nation, corresponding to higher levels of proficiency as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Big financial challenges for public schools

Still, schools face big challenges, particularly those with large numbers of low-income and special education students and English language learners. The biggest challenge, Underly said, is revenue.

After more than a decade of school funding that , and a less than 30% state reimbursement for special education — a mandatory cost that is eating up school districts’ budgets, driving deep cuts in other programs, public school advocates with the latest state budget.

Gov. Evers had adopted DPI’s proposals in his own budget, including a big increase in the state reimbursement for special education from less than 30% to 60%, lifting local revenue limits and providing a total funding increase of $2.6 billion. The Legislature stripped that down to $1 billion, and left 40% of school districts with less funding this year than they had under the previous, zero-increase budget.

Remaining hopeful part of the job

Despite the existential challenges facing Wisconsin public schools, including the elimination, next year, of the cap on enrollment for voucher schools, Underly said she has a lot of hope for 2024.

“When we talk to kids, especially the ones that remember COVID — middle school, high school kids — they have a lot of hope for the future.”

She is already working on her next budget proposal, which will include teacher recruitment, increasing funding for mental health and, once again, an increase in the state’s special education reimbursement, as well as programs including free meals that address poverty.

“We need to get kids what they need, so that they can be successful and making sure that they’re not hungry is really critical for them to be able to focus and concentrate,” she said.

“I think it’s important that we continue this hopeful outlook because that’s what our schools need,” Underly added. “Our schools don’t need to be attacked. Our students don’t need to be attacked. So just supporting our schools, supporting our students and supporting that hope is part of supporting their education.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on and .

At the concurrent , teachers, parents and community members called for Maron and Egorov’s removal, citing the Chancellor’s promise, loss of “trust,” and high risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth. Maron was not present.

An elected member of a prominent New York City education council said “there is no such thing as trans kids,” while another claimed the social justice movement is “destroying the country,” in a private parent group chat.  

In the same set of exchanges dating back to June 2022, Andrew Gutmann, a former New York City parent and current Florida congressional candidate, accused LGBTQ people and social justice advocates of being “anti-children,” and trans and nonbinary kids as “indoctrinated” in a “really dangerous cult.” 

Responding to one Brooklyn parent’s concern about the number of LGBTQ children in her child’s school, Manhattan District 2 Community Education Council member Maud Maron responded “the social contagion is undeniable” and called hormone blocking drugs “an abomination.” 

On the same day in another exchange about LGBTQ kids, Maron said, “There is no such thing as trans kids [because] there is no such thing as transition i.e. changing your sex.” 

The “social contagion” phrase, equating an aspect of a child’s identity to disease, was used by a northern California school board member earlier this year who . 

In a statement, a NYC Department of Education spokesperson called the remarks “despicable and not in line with our values.”    

In WhatsApp logs obtained by The 74, an additional parent leader made crude remarks levied at a state senator, while another shared a worksheet that defined hate speech as “usually constitutionally protected” and an “expression of opinion.” 

Maron also hormone therapy causes permanent, harmful effects for teens taking the drugs. “Some of these kids never develop adult genitalia and will never have full sexual function. It’s an abomination,” she wrote on November 11, 2022. 

When asked for comment on the remarks, Maron asserted her position by stating, “Radical trans ideology as taught in our public schools is regressive, homophobic and often deeply misogynistic.” She added telling gender expansive kids they need to be “fixed” by transitioning “leads to grave, irreversible harm for so many young people.” 

The  has supported access to , as have all leading medical associations in the country, according to the , who also cited research that  improves long-term physical and mental health, and reduces suicidal ideation.

Local leaders and advocates have called for Maron and fellow CEC member Danyela Souza Egorov to resign or be removed by NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks. Elected members, serving two-year terms, advise education officials on 32 CECs throughout the city. 

“If they’re not going to be removed, they have to engage in training … There has to be a level of accountability when grownups are the ones that are harming children,” said Panel for Education Policy member Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a CUNY school of medicine neurology professor appointed by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “My heart breaks.”

In addition to calling the comments “despicable,” a DOE spokesperson said the department “does not condone the opinions expressed” in the log and added “all children deserve protection, including LGBTQ+ children.”

“Our educators work every day to make New York City public schools safe and supportive environments for LGBTQ+ youth,” the DOE spokesperson said.

Chancellor’s regulation prohibits discrimination or harassment based on gender and other protected classes, stating “the DOE does not tolerate disrespect towards children.” The regulation also states that, after an investigation, the chancellor may remove or suspend members if conduct poses a “danger to the safety or welfare of students” or “is contrary to the best interest” of the district. 

The department receives complaints against CEC members who are thought to be in violation of the chancellor’s regulations by email. 

Manhattan City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents families and children in School District 2, also denounced the remarks and encouraged disciplinary action. 

“It is deeply troubling that CEC members are engaging in demeaning, transphobic smears that are reminiscent of playground bullies rather than responsible adults tasked with advocating for the well-being of our kids,” Bottcher said. “Our students deserve better.” 

The chat also revealed some members believe hate speech, racism, white supremacy and other “social justice” jargon are fraught terms used to “discriminate against” white and Asian people. “The anti-racists are so racist,” said Maron.

That parents with these views have gained power locally is unsurprising to scholars who study conservative parent rights movements like Moms for Liberty. The groups and rhetoric are most frequently found in politically purple or liberal areas where parents feel their voices are sidelined for more liberal agendas. 

Pushing back on diversity trainings they find divisive, for example, one parent asked: “So you can pay to become a racist?” in reference to a , voluntary workshop hosted by the teacher’s union entitled, “Holding the Weight of Whiteness.”

Maron replied: “For the bargain price of $25.” 

In an exchange critiquing the United Federation of Teachers training on power dynamics in the classroom, Egorov said “this is poisonous and it is destroying the country.” She did not respond to requests for comment. 

Experts who study civil rights and freedom of speech in the U.S. have witnessed rhetoric throughout the country, but say there’s a key distinction at play here. 

“I think the most dangerous thing about these messages is who they’re coming from,” said Maya Henson Carey, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center, “because these people have power to make change.”  

On November 20, 2022, Egorov sent the WhatsApp group an explainer to help push back on social justice terms. The one pager defined diversity as “an attack on merit and a form of soft bigotry,” adding that accountability is “bullying” and “mob rule.” A parent immediately responded, “this is good.”

The Responding to Social Justice Rhetoric sheet was created in 2021 by a group of academics with the Oregon Association of Scholars, a chapter of the National Association of Scholars, known as a conservative group that has lobbied against diversity policies.

The worksheet serves as a “translation guide,” for anyone “hoodwinked by language” said Peter Boghossian, one of its authors. 

The guide also defined inclusion as “restricted speech and justification for purges,” and a way to make “people feel welcomed by banning anything they find offensive.”

But inclusion for LGBTQ students is top of mind for many educators and families nationwide as the youth mental health crisis worsens. Queer kids, often ostracized from their homes or communities, are and foster care. They are also four times as likely than their peers to contemplate suicide, according to .

New York recently passed a safe haven law legally protecting trans students and their doctors introduced by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal. 

In the WhatsApp chat, both the law and Hoylman-Sigal were subject to explicit vitriol by prominent parent leaders. 

Chien Kwok, former District 2 CEC member and president of local nonprofit Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, wrote, “I would imagine Hoylman would have cut off his penis to transition if he was allowed to run away from his home state of West Virginia to NY. Do you think Hoylman or his husband would have regretted Hoylman being a eunuch?”

Kwok responded to requests for comment by reiterating his question for the state senator and adding “the radical transgender ideologies that [Hoylman-Sigal] supports and turned into law have harmed countless children and teens in the US and around the world.” 

A few hours after Kwok’s original comment, Gutmann, a former NYC private school parent who denounced his , chimed in: what LGBTQ people and social justice “ideologues” have in common is “not wanting children, which has made them anti-children (hence anti-family).” 

Gutmann later told The 74 that while the private messages were written “quickly” and “in a casual tone,” he stands by “everything I have written in this and any other private chat group in which I have participated.” 

Hoylman-Sigal said the “cruel and frankly outrageous” chat history makes clear that, locally, the CEC members are not able “to safeguard learning for students. The disrespect and intolerance that is evident in these chats shows just the opposite. To them, LGBTQ kids, specifically transgender children, are second class.” 

The logs are a “call to action,” he added, for CEC leaders, Banks, and parents to vote them out of office. 

Though the outcomes of recent school board elections nationwide show many parents disagree with conservative parent leaders’ emphasis on limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender, parent leaders like Gutmann, Kwok, Maron and Egorov have been hoping to expand their reach. 

“We need to organize ourselves to recruit CEC candidates so we can expand our influence and keep it where we have [a] majority,” Egorov wrote to the group on January 1, 2022. 

They came close.  

Forty percent of Community Education Council members endorsed by PLACE, the conservative parent advocacy group co-founded by Maron and Kwok, .

Lawmakers and experts at local LGBTQ nonprofit are advocating for a new , sponsored by Hoylman-Sigal, requiring that all New York school districts establish policies to protect nonbinary and transgender students.

As LGBTQ students head back to school throughout Virginia, they return to a patchwork of contradictory rules dictating who may use what bathroom, play on which sports team and ask their teachers to address them by new pronouns. At issue is whether new state policies outlining the treatment of transgender students contradict state and federal law — and whether the commonwealth has the ability to enforce them.

In recent weeks, several of Virginia’s largest school systems have said they will not adopt the state’s new model policies, finalized in July. These require districts to use the pronouns and name a child was assigned at birth, exclude gender-nonconforming children from locker rooms and other facilities that match their identities and, critics say, risk the forced outing of transgender kids. 

On Aug. 15, the state’s largest school system, Fairfax County Public Schools, joined the Arlington and Prince William County districts in that, after reviewing the guidelines, they would keep their existing rules, which leaders believe comply with the law. Last year, when a draft of the policies was first released, leaders in Falls Church, Alexandria and Richmond said they didn’t plan to adopt them. 

Roanoke County Public Schools and a number of rural districts have begun using the new policies, titled “.” The new rules assert that “All students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment or bullying,” but also say numerous LGBTQ protections must be reversed.

Many districts have yet to take up the question.

The disputes could end up in court, but attorneys tracking the seesawing debates predict the issue will become a central fixture of this fall’s campaign season. Every seat in the Virginia General Assembly is up for election in November, as are numerous school boards. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin — who cruised to office in 2021 on a “parents’ rights” platform — has suggested that board members who don’t adopt the guidelines may not be “.”

Civil rights advocates agree with district leaders who say the new policies contradict a number of state and federal anti-discrimination laws. They don’t believe the state Department of Education has the authority to enforce their adoption.

On Aug. 23, the commonwealth’s attorney general issued an advisory opinion saying the guidelines comply with state and federal law. is silent on what action state officials may take against districts that disagree. The day before, Youngkin held a press conference where he . Asked what the state could do to enforce the guidelines, he said, “I just ask you to stand by. Just stay by.”

Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter told The 74, “The law requires the Virginia Department of Education to provide model policies and requires school boards to adopt policies consistent with those provided by the department. Virginia school divisions that reject and diverge from … model policy guidance are perpetuating a false notion that they know what’s better for a child than a child’s parent. School boards are expected to follow the law.”

Contacted by The 74, Victoria LaCivita, spokeswoman for Attorney General Jason Miyares, said school boards “are now on notice of their legal obligation to adopt policies consistent with the model policies. 

“If a school board voted not to adopt policies consistent with the model policies, parents can sue under current state law,” she added. “Our office will be monitoring all litigation and will be prepared to participate where doing so is appropriate and parents have valid claims.”

But Carl Tobias, Williams Chair at the University of Richmond School of Law, says it’s “in dispute” whether the policies — which he called “diametrically opposed” to the thrust of the underlying legislation — conform to the law or whether the state has the authority to act if they are not adopted. 

The purpose of the underlying 2020 statute is clear, he says: “The intent was to do whatever was necessary and evidence-based to help transgender students. That’s what the legislature wanted to do.”

The question now, he adds, is “who’s going to sue whom.”   

The state Department of Education did not reply to questions from The 74 about whether it will take action against the districts.

So far, districts are reacting to the new guidance much in the way they did to policies issued two years ago by Youngkin’s Democratic predecessor regarding the same law, with many small or rural districts sidestepping the question or adopting less detailed policies written by the Virginia School Board Association. State officials took no action against school leaders who did not adopt the first set of policies.

Fairfax is following the law, says Wyatt Rolla, senior transgender rights attorney at the ACLU of Virginia: “It’s really important for folks to understand that … this guidance document, these model policies, cannot and does not change the obligations of school boards under existing federal and state law. In Virginia, as well as under federal law, students are protected from discrimination on the basis of gender identity.”

Adopting the policies could leave districts open to lawsuits and federal civil rights complaints from families, Rolla says: “They really threw school districts under the bus.” 

There are 1.2 million public school students in Virginia. Researchers estimate some 4,000 are transgender. Their rights have been considered settled law since 2020, when the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of a transgender former Gloucester County student named Gavin Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom. 

In March 2020, in the runup to that court decision and with a Democratic trifecta in power, assembly members spelling out a series of protections for LGBTQ students, which are also detailed in the . The new law specified that “the Department of Education shall develop and make available to each school board model policies concerning the treatment of transgender students in public elementary and secondary schools.” 

The legislation spelled out a number of protections and required the policies to be based on “evidence-based best practices.” Then-Gov. Ralph Northam’s education department issued the first set of guidelines in 2021.

Simultaneously, Virginia had become the epicenter of protests over LGBTQ rights, curriculum involving race and history, book bans and other culture war issues. Campaigning on a platform that promised to ensure parents’ right to shield their children from these topics, Youngkin was elected governor.

A year ago, he released new proposed guidelines, triggering a wave of and drawing more than 70,000 public comments, the vast majority in opposition, says Tobias. The final rules were published in July. 

“The 2021 Model Policies promoted a specific viewpoint aimed at achieving cultural and social transformation in schools,” the new document explains. “The 2021 Model Policies also disregarded the rights of parents and ignored other legal and constitutional principles that significantly impact how schools educate students, including transgender students.” 

Rolla is critical of the way Youngkins’s policies are organized, noting that they are likely difficult for the public — including many school board members — to understand. For example, one paragraph states, “Students shall use bathrooms that correspond to his or her sex, except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires. See Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, 972 F.3d 586 (4th Cir. 2020).”

But far from outlining exceptions, the Grimm decision is unequivocal: Students may use the restroom that matches their gender identity. The ruling goes to pains to reject the legal validity of trying to distinguish between biological sex and gender identity in matters involving sex-segregated school facilities. 

An expert in education and the constitution, Bob Jarvis is a professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Law in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has directed a number of state agencies and education officials to adopt policies and rules that critics say often are not backed by law. District leaders, Jarvis says, need help from the legal system.

“I’m surprised that no school board or school district has gone to court and said, ‘So, judge, we have a problem. On the one hand, we’re looking at Grimm; on the other hand, we’re looking at these new standards. And we are not sure if we can legally follow the new standards.’ ”

A district refusing to comply with the guidelines — even if confident they are illegal — is taking a risk, says Jarvis. “Because you don’t have the power to decide that the new guidelines are contrary to state law, you have to go to court,” he says. “It would be very interesting if the school boards’ attorneys would tell you their calculations. 

“I assume that they would say, ‘Because we are between this rock and a hard place. We think, with Grimm and the way the state law is written, that we are on safer ground … if we follow this course than if we follow the other course.’ ”

Also at issue: The model policies go beyond existing legal precedents. Even if parents sign off on a student’s request to change their name or pronouns, the rules say staff and classmates are not required to recognize them if they believe doing so violates their religious or ideological freedoms. 

“Practices such as compelling others to use preferred pronouns is premised on the ideological belief that gender is a matter of personal choice or subjective experience, not sex,” the model policies state. “Many Virginians reject this belief.”

Courts are sometimes quick to decide administrative disputes, say Jarvis and Rolla. But even if legal challenges are filed, it’s unlikely they would prevent the districts’ refusal to implement the policies from becoming a political wedge. Every lawmaker in the commonwealth and lots of school board seats are up for election in a few weeks in a state that has drawn national attention galvanizing voters by challenging schools’ LGBTQ policies. 

“It drives the base on both sides,” says Jarvis. “On the Republican side, it drives the base by showing that we really have to get tough, because look at what these crazy districts are doing, thumbing their nose at the guidance. And on the Democratic side, of course, it drives the base because it shows if you don’t turn out, there will be more of this to come.”

Disclosure: Andy Rotherham is a member of the Virginia Board of Education and sits on The 74’s board of directors. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this story. 

The summit will be held at a downtown Marriott from June 29 through July 2, despite from LGBTQ rights advocates and others who object to the group’s stance on social and education issues. 

The American Historical Association sent to the Museum of the American Revolution on June 26, urging its president to reconsider the decision to let Moms for Liberty hold a portion of the summit there.

“Moms for Liberty is an organization that has vigorously advocated censorship and harassment of history teachers, banning history books from libraries and classrooms, and legislation that renders it impossible for historians to teach with professional integrity without risking job loss and other penalties,” the letter read.

Neither Moms for Liberty nor the Museum of the American Revolution responded to a request for comment about the letter. 

The summit is a must for Republican leaders, a reflection of the organization’s influence. Some high-profile speakers, including DeSantis, are returning for a second round: The governor spoke at last summer’s event alongside Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and former secretary of housing and urban development Ben Carson. 

This year’s event has proven an even bigger draw for conservative politicians and their followers. Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said the 650-ticket summit has already sold out. 

The vocal, right-wing parent organization was formed in Florida in 2021 by school board members Tina Descovich and Justice and by , who is married to the of the Florida Republican Party. 

Moms for Liberty members originally targeted COVID protocols but have since focused on critical race theory, diversity and inclusion, social-emotional learning and LGBTQ issues, among other topics. The group claims 285 chapters and 120,000 members across 44 states.

The organization gained national recognition after members disrupted school board meetings across the country, with of those who oppose their views. Local chapters have mounted highly successful efforts targeting materials related to racism, slavery and gender. 

Moms for Liberty was recently labeled an by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Justice called the characterization shocking and absurd. 

“I think they’ve really shot themselves in the foot,” she said. 

Her group’s mission is to empower parents and support their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, she said. 

“That includes their education, their medical care and their morality and their religion,” she told The 74. “And it seems like we’re in a tug-of-war with the federal government in our nation’s schools.”

President Joe Biden also was invited to the summit, but his office did not respond, Justice said. The Biden campaign did not answer emails requesting comment.

Moms for Liberty has endorsed across the nation, many of whom have gone on to win. 

Despite its ability to attract high-profile politicians and zealous parent advocates, some experts question whether education will be a key issue in the 2024 presidential race.

Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said he thinks it will likely take a backseat. 

“Education is one of those issues that is tempting politically because it gets a fervent response for a subset of voters, particularly parents,” he said. “And that can be attractive because it lets you mobilize people who don’t always like to turn out — or are on the fence. But … it can backfire.”

School politics, he said, “can take sharp twists and turns” that leave politicians exposed.

“Today’s cheers for a strong stand against so-called ‘smut’ in texts can morph into indignation at book banning and perceived attacks on treasured schools and teachers,” he said. 

Frederick M. Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said politicians once used education to appeal to voters in the middle. Now, he said, they use it to court their base. 

“If Trump is the nominee and you don’t like him, it’s not likely that his stance on Title IX or school choice will change that,” he said. “And if you’re concerned about Biden, wokeness or federal spending, it’s tough to imagine that a proposal for universal pre-K or student loan forgiveness is going to win you over.”

Michael J. Petrilli, president of the , a research fellow at Stanford University’s and executive editor of , said that if Trump gets the nomination, his views on education or other issues won’t really matter. Nothing will distract from the candidate himself, he said. 

The embattled former president, whose divisive rhetoric has continued well beyond his time in office, is facing a host of legal troubles, including a recent indictment over alleged . 

“If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, the election will be about Donald Trump,” Petrilli said. “End of sentence. Policy issues will play an exceedingly minor role.”

But if another candidate wins the party’s nomination, Petrilli said, he or she might use the issue of school choice to entice working-class Hispanic and Black voters.

“And it might work,” he said. 

DeSantis has banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity . His Parental Rights in Education Act — often called the Don’t Say Gay Bill — has been replicated .

Haley, a former , has referred to transgender girls participating in girls’ sports as “the women’s issue of our time” on the campaign trail. Placing herself to the right of DeSantis, she has said his legislation isn’t stringent enough. 

Henig said the Florida governor’s overall stance is too extreme to succeed with a national electorate.

“Americans still have a lot of trust and allegiance to their local school communities,” he said, adding that Democrats might frame DeSantis’s efforts as an attack on teachers.

The Texas attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Biden administration over its interpretation of Title IX — which was expanded two years ago to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — arguing that noncompliance puts Texas schools at risk of losing federal funding.

This lawsuit highlights an existing rift between Texas legislation and the 51-year-old federal civil rights law.

In 2021, the Biden administration said that Title IX, which protects people from sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities, also applies to LGBTQ students.

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That same year, the Texas Legislature passed a law that bans transgender children in K-12 public schools from playing on sports teams that are aligned with their gender.

State law prohibits schools from following the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which the attorney general’s office said could put districts at risk of losing federal funding. During this year’s legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed , which expanded the existing restriction on transgender students to include athletics at the . And on Wednesday, Gov. announced he would sign what he’s calling the “Save Women’s Sports Bill” this week.

“Texas is challenging this blatant attempt to misuse federal regulatory power to force K-12 schools, colleges, and universities in our state to accept and implement ‘transgender’ ideology — in violation of state law — by misusing the Title IX statute to threaten the withholding of federal education funds,” said a statement from the attorney general’s office announcing the lawsuit.

“The Administration’s unlawful guidance could put at risk over $6 billion in federal funding that supports Texas K-12 and higher education institutions.”

The lawsuit was filed by , who is serving as the interim attorney general. was suspended and faces an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate later this summer. Paxton had previously been critical of Biden’s expanded Title IX regulations.

In the 2020 case , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination on the basis of sex, applies to gay and transgender workers as well.

Subsequently, the Biden administration updated the Title IX regulations to comply with the Bostock ruling by prohibiting discrimination in educational activities and programs on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

In April, the Biden administration proposed an amendment that would prohibit blanket bans barring transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. The amendment applies to K-12 schools, as well as universities.

“Trans kids deserve to be respected in schools. Kids having their pronouns respected is a basic human right that cis people take for granted. Does the AG really want to tell Texas children that some kids deserve their teacher’s respect and others do not?” Johnathan Gooch, communications director for the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said in a statement to The Texas Tribune.

“When the Supreme Court ruled that trans rights are part of Title VII protections, they rightly saw that trans and gender expansive people are protected under federal civil rights laws,” he said.

The attorney general’s announcement noted that this was Texas’s 50th lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Disclosure: Equality Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

This article originally appeared in  a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Over the last three years, hundreds of bills seeking to strip protections from LGBTQ youth have rolled through statehouses.

In the opening weeks of the 2023 legislative season alone, more than of — most of them targeting schools — were introduced throughout the country. 

It’s no surprise that queer students in where these laws have passed are profoundly impacted. But less visible is the dramatic effect the steady drumbeat of headlines has had on youth in places with even strong anti-discrimination laws. Newly released data from the advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project show increases in hostility, victimization and discrimination experienced by students in blue states as well as red.

The effects are devastating. of LGBTQ 13- to 17-year-olds considered suicide last year, as opposed to of high school students overall, according to The Trevor Project. Eighteen percent actually attempted it. Seventy percent report anxiety, and 57% experienced depression.

Strong in-school relationships are a well-known protective factor. LGBTQ students who say their teachers care a lot about them are to consider suicide and 43% less likely to be depressed than those who don’t feel cared for, according to The Trevor Project. 

Rates of self-harm are much lower among students who feel affirmed in school, and acceptance of LGBTQ students had risen steadily — if unevenly — following legal recognition of same-sex marriage. But the number of youth who see their schools as affirming has fallen dramatically over the last four years. 

In California — where the first gay couples married in 2008 and schools began teaching LGBTQ history a decade ago — found that the number who reported hearing homophobic remarks from adults in school rose from to 49% in 2021. That’s an increase of 408%.

, where same-sex marriage has been recognized for almost 20 years, the number of youth exposed to anti-LGBT remarks is up 686% over the same time frame.

In Minnesota, where queer youth are protected by strong human rights laws, the number is up 520%. In Connecticut, it’s 482%. In New Hampshire, 545%.

The increases are so big in part because acceptance had been on the rise in many places. In red states, the rise in anti-gay and anti-trans speech is smaller — but only because the starting numbers were much higher.

According to the surveys, anti-trans remarks are pervasive. , the number of students who report hearing transphobic remarks from school staff rose 235%, from 34% to 80%. , the number rose by 190% to 76%. In Missouri, 197% to 73%.  

In fact, when reports of hostile speech by peers are added to the rate of problematic adult remarks, there is no state in the nation where fewer than 93% of LGBTQ students reported hearing slurs in school. Nationwide, 83% were harassed, 54% were sexually harassed and more than 12% assaulted. 

Kids in the crosshairs

A new data analysis by The 74 shows how this , aimed at a relatively , is having an outsize effect. The number of youth who identify as something other than cisgender is growing, but it’s still a tiny number of children. 

Of the approximately 16 million high school students in the United States, an estimated 1.8 million, or 11.6%, identify as LGBTQ. Just 300,000 are gender-nonconforming. 

Ten years after became widely recognized, a sizeable majority of Americans with gay, lesbian and bisexual co-workers and neighbors. Experts say it’s harder to attempt to undo LGBT rights overall than to about the experiences of a very small subset of people.     

And unlike past campaigns to vilify LGBTQ people, this time, the rhetoric targets kids, not adults. Even though some of the new policies take aim at bathrooms and gymnasiums, the impact spills over to classrooms, hallways and libraries, affecting a much larger number of children.

They are bullied and assaulted; subjected to increasingly negative remarks even from teachers who are supposed to protect them; silenced from raising LGBTQ topics — even talking about their families during class discussions; discouraged from participating in sports or other activities; forbidden from wearing with supportive messages or forming gay-straight alliances or other affirming student clubs; disciplined for identifying as LGBTQ and for wearing clothes deemed “inappropriate” for their gender.

And while queer students often consider their schools safer than even their own homes, too often, they don’t report victimization or discrimination is because they don’t believe the adults will do anything about it. 

“They rely on these peer support groups, they rely on sympathetic teachers, counselors, coaches,” says Austin Johnson, a sociology professor at Kenyon College and director of the Campaign for Southern Equality’s Research and Policy Center. “Folks who are meant to be their resources, institutions that are meant to serve them and provide resources to them, actively rejecting them, stigmatizing them — those kinds of things are really damaging.”

Nor can kids simply decide — without repercussions — to stop attending a school that no longer feels safe, he says: “They’re stuck in this environment of hostility and negativity, with no way out.”

Despite the role an affirming school culture plays in protecting LGBTQ students’ mental health, policies prohibiting bullying and discrimination and newer laws requiring positive representations of gender and sexual minorities in classroom materials are poorly implemented. The reasons range from local political pressure to a lack of state and federal oversight. Too often, laws on the books are no match for negative rhetoric and the fear that comes with it.

by Educators for Excellence found that the number of teachers who say their schools are meeting the needs of their LGBTQ students is falling. The survey showed a sharp decline in educators’ perceptions of how well schools are serving LGBTQ youth, with 41% of respondents in 2020 saying their schools often meet these students’ needs, versus 22% this year. The survey also found that teachers of color and older educators were more likely to approve of  instruction on LGBTQ people and topics and to criticize their schools for not doing enough.

Using and the Movement Advancement Project, The 74 created a series of interactive maps. The first shows the increase in the number of youth who are the targets of hostile remarks from school staff, with state-by-state breakdown of the percentages and the status of laws and policies affecting LGBTQ students.

Student Experience Map

Increase in Homophobic & Transphobic Remarks from Educators Heard by Students Between 2019 & 2021

Data from the Movement Advancement Project and GLESN’s 2021 National School Climate Survey; downloaded May 18, 2023.

Administered since 1999, GLSEN’s school climate surveys are among a few datasets that include information about LGBTQ youth, although a 2022 Biden administration executive order has directed federal agencies to begin collecting and disseminating information on gender and sexual minorities. 

GLSEN’s findings are echoed by data collected by organizations that measure the well-being of all young people, not just LGBTQ students. In Fiscal Year 2022, the U.S Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received 633 allegations of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, according to a department spokesperson. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long found gay, lesbian and bisexual youth of in-school harassment and violence. 

In short, researchers say, regardless of whether the so-called culture wars are a coordinated political strategy aimed at voters, they are endangering queer students’ sense of safety even at schools with strong anti-discrimination protections.

‘Don’t Say Gay’ and mental health

Four years ago, for the first time, The Trevor Project, a queer youth suicide prevention group, started asking questions about the political climate and kids’ mental health on its annual survey of LGBTQ youth. Eighty-five percent of those said they pay attention to news stories about LGBTQ rights. A third said their well-being was poor most or all of the time because of the legislation and policies, and 2 in 3 said hearing about potential “Don’t Say Gay” laws make their mental health worse.

Teens in the survey felt the impact regardless of where they live. For example, 86% of respondents in and — both sites of over LGBTQ rights — as well as in progressive said the rhetoric has affected their well-being. 

Nine in 10 teens in Minnesota and Massachusetts, states with strong civil rights laws, said politics weighs on them — the same number as in Oklahoma, where a number of policies curtailing LGBTQ youth rights have been adopted. 

“It’s not enough anymore to say, ‘These laws don’t exist here,’ ” says Johnson. “Even when a law doesn’t exist, the rhetoric around it creates this environment of hostility, fear and confusion.”

According to GLSEN, more than four-fifths of queer teens have experienced in-person harassment or assault and almost as many say they feel unsafe in class and avoid school functions. A fifth have changed schools because of the climate, and a third miss one or more days a month. 

Research has long established that the resulting student absenteeism, lack of participation in sports and other school activities, depression and stress are direct causes of lower grade-point averages and graduation rates, dramatically higher discipline rates and other factors that can impact a student’s life trajectory. 

A 2023 Trevor Project survey of found of LGBTQ students who said they were affirmed at school than at home: 54% vs. 38%. Youth who perceived either setting as supportive were 4 percentage points less likely to attempt suicide.

Queer adults and their supporters often describe the political furor as a backlash against steadily expanding civil rights protections. But the current wave of legislation targets kids — and the schools where many find a supportive community. 

Proponents cite a number of reasons why the new laws are needed. They seek to shield students from materials they deem inappropriate; to combat supposed “indoctrination” and “grooming” by sexually predatory educators; to stop children from using a new name or pronouns in school without their parents’ consent; and to protect cisgender girls from trans girls in bathrooms and locker rooms, among other reasons. 

But LGBTQ-rights advocates counter that the impact of the laws is much broader. To understand how both restrictive and protective policies trickle down — or don’t — to affect LGBTQ students, GLSEN regularly asks queer teens throughout the country about their experiences in school. 

The maps below, based on an analysis by The 74 of data from GLSEN’s 2021 National School Climate Survey — the most recent available — depict more than 22,000 students’ responses regarding 10 key experiences, broken down by state. Five of the maps focus on episodes of discrimination and harassment, five on access to in-school support.

2021 National School Climate Survey

Discrimination & Harassment

Percentage of students who experienced at least one form of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination at school

Unchanged since 2019, 59% of queer students nationwide experienced at least one form of discrimination in school, ranging from assault to being stopped from talking or writing about an LGBTQ topic or person. That average, however, obscures a wide variation. Almost 80% of queer students in Tennessee, the state with the highest reported incidence, experience discrimination in school — twice the rate as in Massachusetts, the lowest, at 40%. 

The numbers are , researchers say. Students are hesitant to report harassment and discrimination, while school systems frequently don’t fulfill state and federal reporting requirements. Students may not be out and often fear reprisals, particularly when complaining about a teacher.

“The barriers that young people face to speaking out are very real,” says Aaron Riding, GLSEN’s deputy executive director for public policy and research. “At the school level, there’s still a lot of stigma and shame.”

But research also has found that non-LGBTQ staff may not recognize that something they are doing or that’s taking place is discrimination — even in their own classrooms. Educators in schools with policies specifically prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people are more likely to receive training and may be better able to recognize bias.

Percentage of students who say they reported victimization and received effective staff intervention

A common reason students don’t report victimization or discrimination is that they don’t believe the adults in their school will do anything about it. 

“What we’ve learned over the years is that oftentimes, young people will speak out and the adults will turn around and say that they’re not going to do anything about it,” says Riding. “That is particularly harmful, because educators are the ones who set the tone for the experiences that young people have in schools.”

A 2015 GLSEN survey of educators found that only 26% said they had engaged in efforts to support LGBTQ students. Of the rest, more than half said they did not think those efforts were necessary or appropriate. More than a quarter said they feared a backlash from parents or administrators. 

Historically, when “Don’t Say Gay” laws and policies are enacted, many educators are unsure if all in-school speech about LGBTQ people is outlawed and whether intervening in victimization constitutes a prohibited show of support. Twelve years ago, confusion over a policy in Minnesota’s largest school district, Anoka-Hennepin Public Schools, prevented educators from intervening against bullying, contributing to at least . 

Adding to the uncertainty, guidelines handed down in some states go beyond their new laws. For example, last year, Florida lawmakers passed a “Don’t Say Gay” bill prohibiting in-school discussion of LGBTQ topics in elementary grades. In April, the state Board of Education — whose members are appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis — extended the ban through high school. Soon after, the state legislature voted to enshrine a K-8 ban in law. It was not immediately clear whether the board’s policy remains in effect.

Adding to the confusion, rules handed down by the state Department of Education have taken aim at a number of in state law, such as allowable library and classroom books, student access to anti-bullying materials, and school- and district-level guidance on supporting LGBTQ youth. 

In some places, officials send mixed signals. For example, Virginia law specifically prohibits discrimination against sexual and gender minority students. But in September 2022, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin requiring schools to restrict trans students’ bathroom access and preventing students from using a new name or pronouns without parental permission, among other changes. 

Critics have said Virginia’s new rules, which have , are likely unenforceable. Some districts have said they will not follow the guidelines if they are put into place. But individual educators may not understand this legal and regulatory landscape. 

Percentage of students who were prevented from discussing or writing about LGBTQ+ topics in assignments

Seven states require schools to include LGBTQ history and culture in lessons. Yet, up to 15% of sexual and gender minority students in those states still report being prevented from discussing or writing about queer people or topics in class assignments. Similar numbers of youth were prevented from introducing LGBTQ topics in extracurricular activities. 

The message students hear, Johnson adds, is, “We don’t want LGBTQ people to be a part of our society.” If a child’s parents are not accepting, the new laws choke off their other sources of support. They may no longer turn to their doctors or find a safe haven at school.  

“Think about that,” he adds. “You’re not even allowed to write about your personal experience in a class where it may be relevant, or allowed to see yourself in books that are in your library…. Where can you exist?”

The youth surveyed by GLSEN are teens, but separate research suggests younger kids hear the same message, albeit likely in different ways. from the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute found that 15% of queer Florida parents surveyed say their children — the vast majority under age 18 — worry about talking about their families, drawing pictures of them or completing writing assignments that depict their parents. 

Percentage of students who say their school’s anti-bullying/harassment policy includes sexual orientation and gender identity

Arkansas is one of 22 states with a law on the books specifically outlawing bullying and harassment of gender and sexual minority students. Yet, only 8% of youth there believe they attend a school with a policy prohibiting such victimization. 

The existence of the policy, then, doesn’t make Arkansas youth any safer than students in Missouri, one of two states that has a law prohibiting schools and districts from including LGBTQ children in local anti-harassment policies. There, 6% of students say their schools have anti-bullying rules. 

Most state anti-bullying laws require districts to develop their own policies, create procedures for reporting harassment and make sure students and educators understand the system for addressing complaints. When young people don’t know the policies exist, by definition there is an implementation problem, says Riding. 

“School districts have a lot of autonomy and not a lot of enforcement in terms of adopting a policy and implementing it in schools,” he says. Surveying students to gauge awareness, Riding adds, “helps us know that districts and schools are ignoring those standards.”

While there is no federal anti-bullying law per se, the U.S. Civil Rights Act prohibits in-school discriminatory harassment. Sexual and gender minorities are , which outlaw hostile environments that interfere with a student’s ability to benefit from a school’s activities and opportunities.

Percentage of students who were prevented from wearing clothing deemed ‘inappropriate’ based on gender

In Louisiana, 40% of students surveyed said they were prevented from wearing clothing school staff did not think was appropriate for their gender. Rates were nearly as high in Mississippi and Alabama, and above 30% in numerous other Southern states. Slightly lower numbers say they were told they could not wear clothing with LGBTQ-supportive messages. 

To queer kids, this sends the same message as excluding LGBTQ topics and people from assignments and class discussions, says Johnson. “If you wear a rainbow shirt to school, and you are sent home for it, or you are made to change that shirt, it’s not just about the shirt,” he says. “It’s about saying, ‘People like you … are not welcome here. And not only does it say it to the one kid who is forced to take a button off their backpack, it says it to all the other kids: That kid isn’t welcome here.’”

But it also reinforces traditional gender roles, he says. In Utah, which last year banned transgender students from playing on girls’ sports teams, officials have heard from parents who say their daughters lost to competitors who did not seem feminine enough to be cisgender. 

2021 National School Climate Survey

Access to in-school support

Percentage of students who have access to a gay-straight alliance

Gay-straight alliances — in-school clubs for queer kids and their allies — have flourished since the late 1980s, in part because courts have repeatedly ruled that federal law guarantees students at public schools the right to form them. Virtually all the relevant lawsuits were brought by students.

GSAs provide a supportive network of peers for students who are exploring their identity or attempting to survive discrimination or harassment. They are organized by students, who typically approach a sympathetic staff member — often the school librarian — to be the club’s adviser. 

A trove of research confirms the clubs’ positive impact for non-LGBTQ students, too. found that all students at schools with GSAs have 30% lower odds of experiencing homophobic victimization than peers at schools without a club, 36% lower odds of fearing for their safety and 52% lower odds of hearing homophobic remarks. Other reports have found GSAs on a school’s overall environment. 

The first GSAs were started in Massachusetts, where 68% of teens now report having access to one. In several Southern states, that number drops as low as 8%, but there are some red states with strong GSA movements. A third or more of students in Florida, Arkansas, Kansas and Arizona, all of which recently have passed anti-LGBTQ laws, report their school has a GSA.   

Percentage of students who can identify six or more supportive school staffers

Even in the most inhospitable schools, most LGBTQ students can name one teacher they believe to be supportive. The number drops, though, when youth are asked whether they can identify six. While it’s not an exact barometer — small schools or schools in small districts may not employ enough teachers for six to be LGBTQ-accepting — this survey question is a rough measure of school climate. A student’s ability to name one affirming teacher can mean that individual student has a lifeline, but the existence of several suggests a school welcomes queer adults and kids alike.    

In Louisiana, 91% of LGBTQ students surveyed could name one supportive staff member, while only 37% could identify six or more. In Washington state, 99% could name a single staffer, while 73% knew of six.

One possible factor, says Ryan Watson, a professor of human development and family studies at the University of Connecticut, is that the schools that have several are places where LGBTQ-supportive teachers want to work. Teachers who themselves are sexual and gender minorities also risk repercussions in schools with hostile climates. 

In a 2020 GLSEN survey, 75% of LGBTQ teachers said they had implemented affirming practices such as serving as a GSA adviser, making sure stickers and other signs of support are visible, advocating for inclusive practices or informally discussing queer topics with students. Of non-LGBTQ educators, 49% had engaged in a supportive activity.

Percentage of students who reported their school administration was supportive

Surveys have consistently found that in the face of possible parental backlash, district and school administrators often tell teachers to limit classroom discussion of hot-button topics. Even when they don’t, teachers frequently fear that their department head or principal will not back them if there are complaints from parents and anti-LGBTQ protesters. 

A 2022 RAND Corp. found it did not matter if the opposition came from just “a vocal minority” of parents. Some said their administrations have limited the materials they can use, instituted vetting processes and begun conducting — or allowing parents to conduct — classroom “audits.” 

In 2020, GLSEN found that a third of LGBTQ teachers and one-fifth of non-LGBTQ educators said community backlash and fear of it prevented them from supporting sexual and gender minority students. Ten percent of straight, cisgender educators and 21.5% of queer ones cited unsupportive administrations.

More than a third of LGBTQ teachers said they feared they would lose their job if they came out to an administrator, despite a Supreme Court ruling that this is illegal discrimination.

Percentage of students who were taught positive representations of LGBTQ+ people, history or events

Attending a school in one of the seven states that mandate positive depictions of LGBTQ people and history in classroom instruction is no guarantee a student will receive it. In Massachusetts and Oregon, slightly less than a third of youth reported being exposed to such material, a rate that falls to just 7% of students in California, which 10 years ago became the first state to require inclusive curriculum.

There are a host of reasons for this disconnect. Large publishers balked at revising their textbooks to meet California’s standards, for instance. The companies said they were unable to verify how historical figures might have identified, but critics pointed out that the change would have impacted their bottom line, since they could not sell the same materials in states that explicitly forbid LGBTQ content. 

A found that half of English language arts teachers said they are comfortable using literature that contains LGBTQ characters or storylines in their lessons, but only 24% of them actually incorporated such materials.

More educators — 61% — were comfortable with students choosing queer-themed books to read for pleasure, the report noted. While this may be a safer choice for a teacher who is unsure what book to assign, it’s not ultimately as helpful to students as having everyone read and discuss the same text.  

Separately, a report published last summer by the group Educators for Excellence found 1 in 3 teachers doesn’t think LGBTQ history and experience should be taught in schools, while 11% believe their school does not enroll any gender or sexual minority students.   

Percentage of students with access to inclusive library resources 

Libraries have long been sanctuaries for queer youth, and in part because of the special training they typically receive, school librarians often serve as GSA advisers. The American Association of School Librarians has an entire division devoted to evaluating the quality, content and age-appropriateness of LGBTQ books and other school resources. 

According to the free-speech advocacy organization PEN America, between July 2021 and June 2022, there were , with the largest number occurring in Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Forty-one percent were of books featuring LGBTQ themes or characters. 

The ferocity with which the bans are pursued can create the impression that school libraries are replete with LGBTQ titles. But even in Maine, the state where the most students have access, one-third say their school library lacks books with queer characters or themes. 

Interactive maps and graphics by Eamonn Fitzmaurice / The 74.

“It was an incredibly powerful moment,” says Zander Moricz, a recent Florida high school graduate who was a plaintiff in a suit challenging the law. “We had thousands of students sign a pledge to vote and take a banned history lesson.” 

The law, passed by the Florida Legislature last year, had outlawed classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and required that any instruction in upper grades be “age-appropriate.” The recent extension to was among a slate of resolutions passed by the board at the governor’s behest. It cannot go into effect until after a 30-day “procedural notification” period.

This was not the first time DeSantis has implemented measures targeting LGBTQ Floridians and people of color rather than wait for the legislature to act. Earlier this year, he directed the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine to ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth — a move the legislature is now deliberating enshrining in law. 

DeSantis, widely believed to be laying the groundwork for a 2024 presidential bid, has said his election to the governorship proves to make unilateral policy decisions, which lawmakers can later affirm or — highly unlikely in a GOP-dominated state — overturn. Similar use of executive power by governors and attorneys general in .

He has also restricted instruction on topics involving race, outlawed Advanced Placement African American history classes and announced plans to rid Florida colleges and universities of diversity efforts and instruction involving critical race theory. 

While DeSantis and his backers had said the ban on early-grades discussions of LGBTQ topics was needed to protect young children from inappropriate materials, state officials said last week’s extension to all students was necessary to ensure that teachers do not stray from instruction that meets state academic standards.

The protests, which were followed in some places by community rallies, had a twofold purpose, says Moricz, now a 19-year-old freshman at Harvard University. Young people, he says, needed to feel the power in taking action to defend free speech, while sending a message to elected officials that youth are watching — and planning to vote. 

“There is a culture of fear in Florida schools right now, and it’s hard for students to shake,” he says. “Florida’s legislature is not listening to parents, teachers and students. This legislature is listening to Florida’s governor.”

Students joining the noon walkout participated in 20 minutes of organized activities, including a five-minute version of a Black history lesson banned by DeSantis. The focus: censorship of historical Black and LGBTQ figures. Protesters also registered to vote and wrote letters to school board members and other officials promising to work to elect candidates who support students’ rights. 

Making sure the student demonstrators could realize immediate and tangible outcomes — like taking the voting pledge and having the opportunity to enroll in an online, college-level Black history class created by Harvard faculty who had helped to develop the banned AP course — was important to giving them a sense of their potential power, says Moricz.

“Young people in Florida are taking back the state strategically and intentionally,” he says, “and we’re protecting each other in the process.”

Moricz, a founder of the 2,000-member , gained instant acclaim a year ago, when he was warned not to say gay in his commencement address at Pine View School for the Gifted in Osprey, Florida.

Told his mic would be cut if he mentioned his role as plaintiff, Moricz, who is gay, about coming out as curly-haired.

“I used to hate my curls,” he said, doffing his mortarboard. “I spent mornings and nights embarrassed of them, trying desperately to straighten this part of who I am.

“But the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure. So, while having curly hair in Florida is difficult — due to the humidity — I decided to be proud of who I was and started coming to school as my authentic self.”

After the speech went viral, Moricz was invited to appear on Good Morning America. 

Walkout 2 Learn tapped a number of youth-friendly technologies to organize students throughout the state. Participants were texted instructions on the day of the protest, for example, and will be kept up to date on the group’s work via a Slack channel. Those who independently complete the online Black history class will earn a certification to put on college applications.
“Don’t worry,” , “if your school threatens to punish you, we have lawyers and politicians who will support you.”

According to the report from the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, one of the nation’s leading sources of data on LGBTQ Americans, 15% of parents surveyed say their children worry about talking about their families in school, including drawing pictures or completing writing assignments that depict their parents, and 9% report that their children fear remaining in the state.

Among parents of LGBTQ children, 9% say their kids worry about talking about their identities in school and 13% are afraid of living in Florida. Some told researchers they have stopped engaging in their kids’ school, as they no longer feel safe.

Led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, proponents of the “Don’t Say Gay” law passed last March argue that such measures are needed to help parents ensure their young children are not exposed to information about sexual orientation and gender identity they might disapprove of. Early on, backers of the move said the Florida law was mischaracterized by media accounts and opponents who warned it could lead public school teachers and administrators to .  

However, as schools reopened after COVID shutdowns in fall 2022, officials removed anti-LGBTQ bullying resources from state websites and handed down mandates to for student use from shelves and to ignore nondiscrimination protections for transgender kids.

A survey of 113 LGBTQ parents conducted between June and September 2022, the is an early snapshot of the law’s impact. In the first six months after it was passed, nearly 9 in 10 LGBTQ parents said they were concerned about the law’s effect.

Fears were less intense among those whose children are not yet of school age, are nearly done with school or attend a private school that is not bound by the law. Some of these families said they plan to move if the law is not overturned by the time their child is ready for kindergarten, or that their high schooler plans to go to college in a less hostile state. 

“That so many of them are considering moving is, of course, concerning,” said Abbie Goldberg, author of the report and a professor of psychology at Clark University, which co-sponsored the study. “Whether others have the resources is another question.”

Top reasons cited for continuing to live in Florida were to stay close to family and friends (49%), because of work (47%) and because the state is where they grew up (38%), as well as custody arrangements, caregiving obligations for older relatives, the fact that their child will soon graduate from high school and quality-of-life factors unrelated to the political climate. Still, 21% reported that they are less out in their communities. Almost one-fourth said they now fear harassment from neighbors.  

Five of those surveyed — including parents in three households where one of the adults holds dual citizenship — said they were considering leaving the country. “Should [Donald] Trump (again) or DeSantis become president, we have an exit plan to move out of the country,” one told Goldberg.

In response to open-ended questions, a number of those surveyed said their fears had intensified as time passed. One, for example, said initial concerns were allayed by reading the bill, which prohibits teaching LGBTQ topics before fourth grade and requires such content to be “age-appropriate” thereafter. 

“I am okay with and support the idea of not teaching or telling young children [about LGBTQ people or sexuality]. However, I am concerned that the… ‘developmentally appropriate’ part is too vague and could be interpreted too loosely.” 

But as it became clear that the law’s impact went far beyond curtailing early-grades classroom discussions of sexuality, many parents began seeing ripple effects that have had a negative impact on their families.   

Indeed, confusion among educators about what is permissible under the new law and other legislation empowering community members to sue when they believe it has been violated have raised concerns in some parents about interacting with their children’s schools. 

“We didn’t join our son’s [parent teacher organization] and we didn’t offer to coach Little League this spring,” one said. “We are very, very cautious about having playdates,” reported another.

Several mentioned escalating anti-LGBTQ rhetoric as the cause of heightened concerns. “I worried that as a parent volunteer, I may confront conservative parents who perceive me as a groomer,” said one. “I worried that our family could be targeted and reported to child protective services with false assertions about our parenting based merely on our relationship.”

The rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is not the only pressure many of the families surveyed are under, Goldberg added: “Most people’s identities are complicated. Many of these families are people of color, have kids who are LGBTQ, who are feeling the effects of multiple pieces of legislation.”

OMAHA — Some local parents and students consider a pride flag or “safe space” stickers displayed in a handful of Omaha suburban high school classrooms as inappropriately political.

But these symbols aren’t political to local LGBTQ students. To them, these handheld flags, stickers and supportive posters help them feel accepted and safe.

That is why a first-year Millard North High School principal’s meeting with teachers last month and discussion of the district’s ban on political posters and items is causing a stir.

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Students say they feel unsafe

Students like senior Jayden Randels and junior Scar Connor noticed the flags and stickers coming down and felt less welcome at school, both told the Nebraska Examiner this week.

Randels said he noticed that one of his favorite teachers had a blank spot on a classroom wall where a 2-inch by 2-inch human rights and equality flag used to be.

He relayed that the teacher, whom he did not identify, told him that teachers had been asked to remove the flags and stickers and didn’t give much detail. He noticed similar symbols coming down in other classes.

Randels and Connor said people who haven’t been discriminated against because of who they are don’t understand the value of tokens of visual support.

“They give me the peace of mind to know that, at least within that classroom, I have a safe space and an adult who I can trust and talk to about issues that might be going on,” Randels said.

Meeting with the principal

Connor said she heard about the principal’s meeting with staff and spoke to at least three teachers about it. She said they came away from the meeting with the same impression.

Some staffers believed that they could no longer post pride flags or safe space stickers or risk breaking the district’s years-old ban on political items, the teachers union confirmed.

Connor spoke with the principal, Aaron Bearinger, on Thursday. She spoke with him after getting sent to the office for putting up posters around the school that were critical of him.

The posters urged those who read them to ask the principal why he did not support LGBTQ+ kids. Connor said Bearinger seemed upset about being labeled that way. She said she chafed when he asked her if he should allow someone to put up NRA stickers.

Conner said she disagreed with the comparison. Straight kids don’t have the same risk of suicide and are bullied less often than LGBTQ kids, she said.

Academic research shows LGBTQ young people have contemplated suicide in higher numbers than straight peers and miss more school from fears of being bullied.

Connor said Bearinger told her that pride flags were allowed in the school. Connor and her mother said the principal had drawn a line at safe space stickers and human rights posters with the names of advocacy groups on them, saying district policy did not allow them in classrooms.

The principal, according to Connor, asked her to consider a student who has other beliefs and feels uncomfortable talking to a teacher with a “safe space” sticker up.

Bearinger, reached this week through a district spokeswoman, said he did not recall specifics about his discussion with the student about the “safe space” stickers.

District response

Millard Public Schools spokeswoman Rebecca Kleeman confirmed Thursday that the district has “no policies preventing flags, stickers or other symbols.”

She said what happened at Millard North may have been a misunderstanding. The district has a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

“There was a conversation at Millard North with faculty — and these are conversations at all of our schools — and I think that was misinterpreted,” Kleeman said.

Millard does not allow teachers to bring items tied to politics or advocacy organizations into the classroom unless otherwise directly related to district-approved curriculum, she said.

But teachers with pride flags and student-supportive stickers can put something up like that in their classrooms as long as they cover or remove any advocacy group names.

She recommended that teachers observe the district’s process for seeking approval for classroom posters and reach out to their administrators if they have a question about the rules.

Teachers, senator respond

Tim Royers, president of the Millard Education Association, said the union is trying to figure out what happened at Millard North. He said the union would defend teachers’ rights to support all of their students.

Parents and students upset with the flags and stickers being pulled down reached out to State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha. She met Thursday with Millard district superintendent John Schwartz.

She came away with the impression that the district is trying to convey that they aren’t bad people, when what she and others want is to know when kids can get back their visual support.

For Hunt, the issue is personal. She said she remembers being told she couldn’t go to prom in high school with a girl, that if they wanted to go together it had to be as a group.

She said she got angry at hearing from someone who reached out that the principal had conflated LGBTQ advocacy with the NRA and asked whether he should accept a Satanic Club. She said a district representative apologized.

Hunt said she wanted Millard leaders to understand that backing LGBTQ kids is not taking sides. LGBTQ kids are as politically diverse as any, with liberals, conservatives and more.

“It’s really not that complex,” Hunt said. “Some kids feel vulnerable. Some kids feel unsafe, and there are teachers in the schools who make them feel a little safer, for that one period every day they don’t have to worry about being bullied or judged.”

All kids are welcome

Mike Kennedy, a conservative member of the Millard school board, said he and Millard leaders want all students to feel welcome, and that’s why he said the district tries to avoid politics.

Because of increased political tension locally and nationally, he said, Millard has charted a middle path away from the politics of the day. He said their focus is academics.

“I love all of our students …,” he said. “What we are trying to make sure is that the district is not giving a seal of approval to any viewpoint or political persuasion.”

He and other conservatives have seen the pushes in other red states to re-emphasize bans on political items in classrooms, including some specifically targeting LGBTQ symbols.

Millard, he said, is trying to find a way to be respectful of students and parents on all sides of the political aisle, and he said the board is hopeful the principal can find a way forward.

District officials said Bearinger met with students who expressed concerns and talked to their families. They said the principal has a “safe space” sticker on his own office window.

The principal answered the Examiner’s questions with a statement: “Millard is home. I have been a part of this school for nearly two decades, and care deeply about the students and staff.

“If a young person says they are upset, that is a conversation I take very seriously. I am and will continue to work to make sure everyone who is a part of our school feels heard and knows they are welcome.”

Why symbols matter

Jay Irwin, director of Women’s and Gender Studies and a professor of sociology at UNO, said flags and stickers are important for LGBTQ student feelings of safety and comfort.

“For a young person to see such messages tells them they are not alone, they are valid, and that they matter,” he said.

Connor, who identified herself as a member of the LGBTQ community at Millard North, said she knows students for whom school is the only place they can be themselves.

She, Randels and Hunt reject the idea that supporting people for who they are is somehow political speech. They say it shouldn’t be considered political, but instead an issue of human rights.

“They’re missing the fact that they could really be impacting queer students’ mental health with this,” she said. “It disrupted my happiness and focus on learning.”

Connor’s mother, Aasta Connor, said she came away from talking to the principal thinking the school is trying to satisfy some people upset by the flags instead of focusing on the kids.

“I just want them to make it right and allow teachers to show support for the queer community,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if somebody agrees. It’s not a group you choose to be in.

“You just are.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on and .

Most of those out board members are gay cisgender men. Just 29 are cisgender women, four are trans women, two are trans men and two nonbinary. They serve in 28 states, frequently as the only openly queer school board member in their state.

Given that 7% of the adult U.S. population identifies as LGBTQ, to achieve equitable representation on school boards, voters would need to elect 6,300 more. This year, there are 82 LGBTQ school board candidates, up from 34 in 2018.

In a recent survey, “,” the organization asked LGBTQ board members about their experiences seeking and holding office. Almost half — 47% — of those who responded told the Victory Institute they had been harassed as candidates, while 51% have been verbally assaulted in office — sometimes by a fellow board member. A third have faced threats to their safety, and more than 6% have been threatened with death. 

Almost all — 87% — have put forward pro-LGBTQ policies during their time on their board, with 62% saying supporting queer students was a primary reason they ran. One third say that candidates with anti-LGBTQ platforms are currently running for their boards.

Elliot Imse, executive director of the institute and an author of the recent report, talked to Beth Hawkins about what the numbers mean and what he hopes will happen.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

The 74: Tell us why you did this survey.

Elliot Imse: Right now, LGBTQ people are severely underrepresented on school boards across the country. And the reality is anti-LGBTQ activists are executing on a strategy to flood school boards with extremists who are looking to take away the dignity and rights of LGBTQ students. The best way, perhaps the only way, to counter this is for LGBTQ people to run for school boards, to insert their voices and their votes.

We know from the report that running for school boards is not easy. You face harassment, you face discrimination. But it’s vital at this point for LGBTQ young people that we do step up.

How did you gather this data? 

Victory Institute houses the most comprehensive database of U.S. LGBTQ elected officials, which is displayed on our . We do a ton of outreach to state groups and do surveys to try and find all our LGBTQ elected officials. For this report specifically, we sent a survey to the known LGBTQ elected school board members and received responses from a little more than half of them, which is not bad for an email survey.

What did you hear that surprised you?

What we found was not as much surprising as reaffirming our fears of what school board candidates and members face. Almost half have been the target of anti-LGBTQ verbal attacks as a candidate. More than half have been the target of anti-LGBTQ verbal attacks as a school board member. That is an extraordinary number. When you think about how local some of these races are, these verbal attacks are often coming from neighbors, or people in their communities, and can be extremely threatening for a lot of obvious reasons.

That is a strategy being pushed forward by anti-LGBTQ extremists, where they are trying to get LGBTQ people to be fearful of running for office or to leave office. And we have seen several LGBTQ elected officials recently because of fear for their safety, their lives, because of a plethora of attacks on them because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Let’s flip this around and make the case for representation on school boards. These folks are isolated voices trying to protect kids and teachers.

With very few exceptions, we LGBTQ people are underrepresented in every legislative body in the United States. It’s not unusual for us to be the underdog or lone voice in the room. Yet we know that when LGBTQ people are serving on school boards, or in other elected positions, it changes policy debates, it changes hearts and minds, and it leads to more inclusive policies and legislation. When LGBT people run or serve, it changes the perceptions not just of their constituents, but also their colleagues. 

Which congressman was it who said, essentially, “Dang that Tammy Baldwin for not going away”?

As [Florida Republican Sen.] Marco Rubio was getting into an elevator, he told a reporter, “Marriage equality isn’t important to be talking about right now.” [Wisconsin Democratic Sen.] Tammy Baldwin happened to be in the elevator he was walking into as the doors closed. She told us that she did have some words for him. She wouldn’t be specific, but she’s like, “Trust me, there were words.”

In the room, in the elevator — it’s hard to say to a person’s face.

And it’s no accident right now. With the Respect for Marriage Act in the U.S. Senate, it is no accident that [New York Democratic] Sen. [Chuck] Schumer called on Sen. Baldwin to whip Republican votes. It is much harder to dehumanize someone when you’re talking to that person, versus when they are an abstract community in people’s mind.

What are you hearing from school board members in states where harmful legislation has been enacted or is dominating debate?

We’ve heard from a lot of school board members who are exhausted. It’s extremely exhausting to be playing defense so often, and when that defense is simply protecting the basic needs of LGBTQ students. Adding to that threats that you receive online, via phone, via email. It takes a toll. And these are not positions that are paying full-time salaries.

It’s hard to take. It takes a courageous and leadership-driven person to run for these positions, recognizing that it can be an uphill battle. That said, plenty of our school board members are in more liberal districts where they’ve been able to get great policies passed, and in purple districts where they’ve been able to get basic protections passed for LGBTQ students. It’s not all doom and gloom.

In our report, one third of school board members said there are candidates running for their school board who are championing an anti-LGBTQ platform. So the importance of having them there is real.

Do they have support mechanisms?

At the Victory Institute, we try to support our network of LGBTQ elected officials across the country. We hold events, conferences, convenings to bring LGBT officials together, including school board members. It’s partially about discussing issues, but part of it is networking, which turns into support. Having them be in touch with each other is really important. They need that solidarity to be able to share what they’re going through.

What would encourage more LGBTQ people to run for local office?

Awareness. We work to ensure the community knows and understands the importance of LGBTQ people getting elected, and to help train them to run for these hyperlocal, local and state legislative positions. But it’s also helping LGBTQ people understand that they are qualified for these positions. Whereas a white, straight, cisgender man tends to always think they’re qualified for whatever position is in front of them, we know that LGBTQ people — like women, like people of color — need to be asked more times before they consider a run for office. 

Letting people know that if they have been involved in their communities, they’ve been involved in their children’s education, if they’re a teacher, they are qualified to serve on a school board. Their perspectives are valid. That is huge.

More than three-fourths of respondents said they were called names or threatened, while almost a third were shoved, punched, kicked or even assaulted with a weapon because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ students of color and those with disabilities reported the highest levels of in-school hostility. 

At the same time, the number of LGBTQ students who report having heard negative remarks from teachers and other school staff rose over 2019, the last time the survey was conducted. Fifty-eight percent of students heard adults in school make homophobic remarks, up from 52%. The number of students who said they heard staff say negative things about gender expression rose from 67% to 72%.

As GLSEN’s surveys have found for two decades, the 2021 report tied hostile school climates to increased absenteeism, as well as higher drop-out and lower college-going rates. More than 82% of respondents said they feel unsafe in school. A third missed at least one day a month because of this, while more than 11% missed four or more days and almost 8% missed at least six days. A fifth had changed schools for the same reasons.  

As a result, LGBTQ students surveyed who experienced discrimination at school reported having lower grade-point averages than peers who didn’t — and were twice as likely to be disciplined. Nearly a third of those who said they were considering dropping out blamed a hostile climate caused by gendered school policies.

In addition, the number of students who said their school offers supportive LGBTQ resources, such as gay-straight alliances, fell sharply. In 2021, a third of students said their school had such a club — — and these were more likely to exist in hybrid or online-only environments than in person. Youth whose schools offer the programs are dramatically less likely to hear slurs or offensive language and more likely to say they have supportive staff and peers. 

Between 2001, when GLSEN conducted its first survey, and 2015, the number of queer youth who heard offensive remarks or experienced harassment declined. Since then, however, such incidents have been on the rise — and less than one in 10 say school staff intervened most or all of the time, a drop from 2019.

Because few official education datasets include information about LGBTQ youth, or their in-school experiences and academic successes, GLSEN’s research fills a critical gap. Its new report is based on a survey of more than 22,000 middle- and high-school students in August 2021, with the majority of respondents in ninth, 10^th and 11^th grades. The content of the poll was changed slightly to measure pandemic-era experiences, such as online versus in-person learning. 

More than 90% of students polled said they heard slurs in school. Four in 10 LGBTQ students try to stay out of school bathrooms, locker room and gym classes, and 79% avoid school functions or extracurricular activities. Those in online-only learning environments were less likely to feel unsafe than those attending classes in person. 

While most LGBTQ youth reported their school had discriminatory policies or practices, the most common forms targeted students’ gender. More than 29% of respondents were prevented from using their chosen name or pronouns; more than 27% were barred from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender; one-fourth were not allowed to use the locker room corresponding to their gender and more than a fifth were told not to wear “inappropriate” clothing.

Students also reported being prevented from forming a gay-straight alliance, wearing clothes that supported LGBTQ issues or writing about or completing projects about those issues. Sixteen percent could not play on a sports team aligned with their gender, and 11% said that regardless of their gender, they were discouraged from athletic participation.

Almost 72% said there was no mention of LGBTQ topics in class, while just a fifth said they were assigned such material. Fewer than half could find this information in their school library or access materials online. Again, students in schools where LGBTQ topics are discussed were less likely to report a hostile climate.

Like Republican lawmakers throughout the country, the Alabama officials who pushed to prevent transgender youth from participating in sports said the move was necessary to keep cisgender girls from being driven out.

The state’s junior senator, Tommy Tuberville, went further, leveraging his fame as a college football coach to try to institute a nationwide ban. Within weeks of his swearing in, “Coach,” as Tuberville is known, signed on to the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act and later tried to condition approval of pandemic aid on schools’ exclusion of trans athletes.

On the campaign trail, Tuberville depicted the issue as urgent: “I am , guys turning into women and winning all these state championships all over the country.”

But there is no evidence that trans athletes are crowding out anyone. In fact, the Alabama High School Athletic Association told a reporter last year that it , past or present, in the state.

More to the point, an analysis by The 74 has found no basis for claims that allowing trans students to compete would drive large numbers of athletes away from girls’ high school and college sports. In reality, the opposite is true: In the decade since collegiate sports officials created a set of rules on participation by trans athletes, the number of female students playing sports has skyrocketed in many places. These include many of the 18 red states that in the last few years enacted bans anyhow. Nationwide, the number of female student athletes has risen by more than 13%.

In sports-obsessed Alabama, participation in girls’ high school athletics shot up more than anywhere else in the nation, rising by 63% between 2012-13 and 2018-19. Participation among high school boys was up 45%.

The 74 asked for comments on the discrepancy from Ivey, Stadhagen, the Heritage Foundation (which has issued a number of reports on “radical gender ideology”) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has drafted language for trans ban bills used around the country, defends the laws in subsequent suits by students who can no longer play as a result and filed a suit arguing that trans participation violates the rights of cisgender females. None responded to repeated requests.

Claims of future damage

As bills excluding transgender students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity have been proposed throughout the country over the last two years, the issue has been framed as a future problem, one that could come to pass if nothing is done to bar trans student athletes.

Insisting that students who were assigned a male sex at birth possess innate physical advantages, supporters of the legislation say that without the new laws, cisgender girls will lose out on trophies, scholarships and other opportunities. Using this argument, since 2020, 18 states have passed legislation banning transgender students from competing on girls’ and women’s teams — and, in some cases, on boys’ and men’s teams, too. 

An investigation last year by USA Today found that as lawmakers introduced the measures in statehouses, they often cited supposed damage done to cisgender girls by trans athletes who turned out not to exist or, in a handful of cases, stories about contests won by trans athletes whose records of . 

The debates have also ignored or glossed over a growing body of research suggesting that transgender girls and women over cisgender female players — especially when their body’s production of testosterone has been suppressed.       

The International Olympic Committee, which has had rules governing allowable hormone levels of elite athletes for nearly two decades, last year that gender-nonconforming competitors submit to exams. Noting that there is that testosterone levels alone confer an unfair advantage to transgender athletes, the authorities overseeing individual sports should determine eligibility, with no presumption of athletic superiority.

A handful of wins by transgender athletes over the last six years — most notably, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’s March NCAA Division I — have been met by critics who question whether an aspect of their physique gives them an advantage. But there are very few formal complaints, much less documented instances, of a cisgender girl or woman losing a title or scholarship because of trans competitors. 

‘If you build it, they will come’

Still, even as the furor continues unabated, data analyzed by The 74 show that in more than 10 years of transgender inclusion, no harm has come to girls’ or women’s sports at the high school or college levels. Using the Center for American Progress as a jumping-off point, The 74 examined records from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations, calculating the percentage changes to boys’ and girls’ participation in high school sports by state. 

Both datasets show increases — in many cases, by double-digit percentages. So does a more limited set of statistics compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

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Data Analysis

High School Sports Participation Rates 2012 – 2019

Percentage changes in participation in high school sports, based on statistics from the National Federation of State High School Associations. State laws and policies from LGBTQ rights databases maintained by the Movement Advancement Project. State-by-state estimates of transgender youth populations from the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute. Maps by Eamonn Fitzmaurice / T74

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The datasets differ in how information is collected and what it depicts: The high school federation compiles data showing the number of competitors in each sport by state, so an athlete who plays more than one sport may be counted more than once. Because of the pandemic, the organization was for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. 

The federation recently released figures showing participation in student athletics in 2021-22 was down 4% from 2018-19, dropping from 7.9 million to 7.6 million. A spokesman said the organization believes the dip is likely temporary and attributable to the pandemic, given how many schools were unable to offer comprehensive athletic programs during COVID.     

But between 2012-13, when a set of rules enabling transgender athletes to compete began to be adopted, and 2018-19, the year before pandemic school closures, participation in high school girls’ sports increased by 13.4% nationwide, according to federation statistics. Within that average, large increases were seen — even in a number of states that later went on to adopt anti-trans policies.

In Arkansas, which has gone beyond banning trans athletes to prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for youth, participation rose 40%. In Florida, where a new “Don’t Say Gay” law and a trans sports ban are now in effect, participation rose 29%. In Louisiana, where Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards this year chose not to veto a law excluding trans girls from sports, female athletics was up 23%. In Utah, where lawmakers voted to let a committee examine transgender students who want to play sports, girls’ participation was up 18%. In Idaho, which adopted the first statewide trans exclusion law in 2020, participation was up 12%. 

Girls’ participation increased in 13 of the states that have enacted trans sports bans and fell in five. Of the states that do not specifically exclude trans kids from sports, 22 saw more girls participate, seven saw fewer and four had no change.

These dramatic increases mirror a rise in the number of boys playing high school sports in the same states, which researchers say is likely connected to their sports-centric culture. Under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits schools that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex, states are required to provide equal athletic opportunities to male and female students. So when schools in a football-obsessed place such as Alabama add boys’ football teams, they must create athletic programs for girls as well. 

“The common mantra is, if you build it they will come,” says Anna Baeth, research director of , an organization that has worked with Olympic and collegiate sports officials to develop LGBTQ-inclusive policies. “We’ve seen this across the board with girls’ and women’s sports — where there are opportunities, when there are teams, girls and women show up.” 

On the collegiate level, from 2012 to 2020, the number of athletes overall rose from about 444,000 to more than 500,000, . During that time, the number of female athletes rose 14%, from 193,000 to 223,000, while participation in men’s sports rose 12%, from 251,000 to 282,000. 

Data Analysis

College Sports Participation Rates 2012 – 2020

CDC statistics suggest that over the last decade, more high school girls are playing sports even as the number in boys’ sports has fallen. In its periodic High School Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, which counts only states that agree to participate and to ask residents relevant questions, the number of female high school students overall who reported playing one or more sports between 2011 and 2019 rose from 53% to 55%, while the number of boys fell from 64% to 60%.

Few LGBTQ kids on the playing field

But while female participation in student sports overall has boomed, the number of openly transgender athletes has not. For one thing, says Baeth, there simply are not very many. While there is no system for tracking how many gender-nonconforming students play sports, estimates are that transgender people make up less than 2% of the population at large and about 1.7% of university students. 

As of 2021, more than 87,000 trans students ages 13 to 17 lived in the states that now ban some or all of them from participating in athletics. That’s slightly more than half as many as the 160,000 high school-aged trans students who lived in states where the rules allow them to play. But despite about fairness and inclusion, few take part. 

“Collectively, we did not see a huge rise in the number of trans athletes competing at [the collegiate] level,” says Baeth. “Those numbers have been incredibly low for the last 10 years.” 

Research has long established that LGBTQ students fear school sports and athletic facilities, where they are likely to be harassed. According to , which works to create inclusive school climates, in 2019, 44% of LGBTQ students reported avoiding locker rooms, while 71% of trans boys and 73% of trans girls said they did. Majorities of trans and nonbinary students also avoid gym classes. 

Fifty-two percent of trans boys and nonbinary students and 58% of trans girls say they have been barred from locker rooms. More than 10% of LGBTQ students says school staff or coaches discouraged them from playing sports specifically because of their identities, a figure that is much higher for trans and nonbinary youth than for their cisgender peers.

According to Baeth, lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer youth are twice as likely as their straight peers to leave sports, while trans and nonbinary students are four times more likely.    

Just of LGBTQ students said they would be comfortable talking to a coach or gym teacher. Students’ comfort levels, not surprisingly, are higher in schools where they hear fewer homophobic remarks. More than a third of queer youth said discriminatory policies toward LGBTQ students in general are one reason they do not expect to finish high school. 

Especially when a child’s family is not accepting, a school culture that affirms gender-nonconforming students can literally make a life-saving difference. In administered by The Trevor Project, which addresses suicide and mental health crises in LGBTQ youth, 59% of trans boys and 48% of trans girls considered suicide within the past year, with 22% and 12% making an attempt. Rates were similar among nonbinary students.     

It’s long been known that the risk of suicide falls back to normal rates when a trans child’s family is accepting, but fewer than one in three of students surveyed in 2022 said their home was affirming. Meanwhile, 51% of trans youth said their gender was affirmed at school; suicide rates were lower .

The wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation and of the last two years has increased rates of anxiety, depression and thoughts of self-harm for all LGBTQ kids, but especially for trans and nonbinary youth. Even when they do not attend schools where the new laws are in effect, 93% of trans youth say they fear they will lose their gender health care, 91% are afraid they will no longer be able to use the bathroom that matches their identity and 83% worry about gender-nonconforming students losing the ability to play sports, according to The Trevor Project. 

These mental health issues make sports in particular , says Caitlin Clark, a developmental psychologist and research director for GLSEN. “There is camaraderie, working together with peers, which you don’t often get in general in schools,” she says. “And there’s support from adults. On a sports team, you are often close to your coach.”

Because teams represent schools, Clark adds, there is an inherent sense of belonging. “Being on a team, the rest of the school is cheering for you,” she says. “We know it’s a space of positive youth development — and we know LGBTQ students don’t participate.”

The reality confronts the rhetoric

Organizations that promote and regulate student athletics have tried for years to . Most began loosening restrictions tying trans participation to hormone levels just as political rhetoric alleging harm to girls and women roared to fever pitch. 

When the International Olympic Committee announced a year ago that it was ending trans inclusion policies based on athletes’ medical interventions and hormone levels, it handed authority over each individual game to that sport’s governing body, along with instructions to presume — pending rigorous research to the contrary — that trans athletes have no inherent advantage.

Citing the change to Olympics rules, and with little warning, in January the policies, delegating decisions on trans participation to the authorities overseeing different sports — but requiring trans athletes to undergo testosterone testing.

Some LGBTQ advocates clapped back immediately, accusing the organization of creating a workaround to take political pressure off leaders in states with both trans exclusion laws and sports-centric cultures. Previously, the NCAA had warned that it would not hold major — often lucrative — sporting events in places where all athletes were not welcome and safe. 

What this means is that athletic organizations’ rules governing where and under what circumstances trans youth are allowed to play sports will remain a patchwork  — fueling concerns among LGBTQ advocates that queer students will face increasingly hostile school climates. The state of the law, and state and federal interpretations of it, is confusing as well.         

Guidance from federal officials has seesawed over the last six years. In 2016, the U.S. Education and Justice departments said Title IX’s prohibition on gender discrimination extended to gender identity, protecting trans students in schools and related educational facilities — including bathrooms and locker rooms — and programs such as sports. 

In 2017, however, the Trump Education Department reversed course, saying such policies were best left up to local officials. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to again protect trans and nonbinary youth.

Right now, 19 states, one territory and Washington, D.C., have laws prohibiting in-school discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. By contrast, 24 states offer no specific legal protection to LGBTQ youth, while Missouri and South Dakota have laws prohibiting schools and districts from enacting their own protective rules. Twenty-three states prohibit anti-LGBTQ bullying, while 23 do not.

Two states have unique legal landscapes. Iowa law protects students from in-school discrimination based on their gender identity, except in sports. In March, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law barring transgender girls and women from participation. In Virginia, although state law prohibits discrimination in schools on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Gov. Glenn Youngkin in September ordered schools to to the bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams matching the identity they were assigned at birth.                    

Such inconsistencies have led to a flurry of legal challenges throughout the country, many relying on different theories. The first of the suits, filed in Connecticut, claims that allowing trans students to compete on teams that match their gender identity violates cisgender girls’ rights under Title IX. In 2020, three high school girls represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom , absent their transgender competitors, the plaintiffs would have advanced to and won championships. The plaintiffs and the transgender opponents alike had mixed records of competing against each other and winning.

The lawsuit was on the procedural grounds that the two trans athletes in the original complaint had graduated and plaintiffs could not identify others. It is on appeal. 

At the same time, Idaho became the first state to enact a wholesale ban on transgender athletes’ participation in sports. A trans woman who had previously been eligible to run competitively under NCAA rules sued. Concluding that there was no evidence girls’ and women’s sports were threatened by trans participation, a court as the case moves forward. 

Other students who have filed lawsuits in states with blanket bans include a Tennessee seventh grader who was not allowed to try out for a boys’ golf team and a 10-year-old Indianapolis girl who would be outed to her classmates if she is dropped from the softball team. 

In Utah, where lawmakers overrode an emotional veto by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox to enact a ban, a court last summer halted enforcement pending further legal proceedings. The injunction was issued two days after the Utah High School Activities Association reported receiving complaints from parents the gender of their children’s competitors, arguing some of the girls “don’t look feminine enough.”  

Even in places where discrimination for gender identity is explicitly prohibited, confusion created by proponents of the ban has led students to sue. One example: a trans boy swimmer in Minnesota whose school district made him despite state laws protecting his right to use facilities matching his gender identity.

Most of these lawsuits turn claims of harm on their head: not that bans are needed because participation by trans athletes could do potential harm to girls’ athletics, but rather that the bans do actual harm — to the trans athletes.

So what happens next? 

One or more of the cases are likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, says Marie-Amélie George, an associate professor at Wake Forest University Law School specializing in LGBTQ rights. “They all get at the same issues, although via differing language and different laws and statutes,” she says. “They are all asking the courts to define what the language of Title IX means.”

Absent clarity on whether Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex applies to sexual orientation and gender, the Biden administration and other proponents of LGBTQ inclusion have relied on a June 2020 Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, that found the ban on sex discrimination in employment in a different section of the same civil rights law, Title VII, extends to gender identity.      

Accordingly, in July, the U.S. Department of Education released a proposed expansion of Title IX, extending the law’s protections against “sex-based” harassment and discrimination to gender-nonconforming students. The proposed rules — which interpret how the law should be upheld — did not address sports, something Biden administration officials are dealing with separately.     

“What we’re seeing right now is that in every other situation, other than athletics, we have this proposed rule saying you can’t discriminate against an individual based on their gender identity or sexual orientation,” says Maya Satya Reddy, a clinical fellow at the Harvard Law School’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic. “And what we’re looking ahead to is this upcoming proposed rule that is specifically about gender identity and sexual orientation within athletics.”

The rule, she continued, would make it illegal for a school to enact a policy discriminating on the basis of gender identity. 

In July, however, a Tennessee judge temporarily blocking the Biden administration from enforcing its Title IX rules in 20 states that sued the federal government over its interpretation of the law.

A ruling from the high court on any of the suits filed by trans and cisgender athletes would ultimately clarify whether the law protects LGBTQ students. Legal scholars note that while Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, , it’s unclear whether the court’s newer conservative jurists will agree with his reasoning that discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity is clearly sex discrimination. 

Pending legal clarity — and its impact on the culture of youth sports — LGBTQ students are likely to continue to face harassment and bullying on the playing field, advocates say.   

“Trans athletes just want to play,” says Reddy. “They should have the same opportunities to play as cisgender women.”

The data is drawn from the organization’s fourth annual survey of , which reported steady increases in the number of respondents who report unique risk factors such as harassment, violence and the need to come out over and over in uncertain circumstances; problems finding and getting care; and negative impacts from both the pandemic and a wave of anti-transgender and “don’t say gay” legislation. 

Overall, a third of LGBTQ college students seriously considered suicide last year and 7% attempted it, according to the nonprofit, which advocates for safe environments for queer youth. Both rates were significantly higher among LGBTQ students of color and transgender and nonbinary students. 

LGBTQ youth aren’t inherently prone to suicide risk because of their identity, but rather because of mistreatment, says Hannah Rosen, a research associate with the organization. “The Trevor Project’s research has consistently shown that LGBTQ youth, unfortunately, deal with a significant amount of LGBTQ-based victimization, including bullying and discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Thirty-two percent of those who had access to mental health services seriously considered suicide, versus 46% of those who did not. Twenty-two percent of those with no access to college services attempted suicide, compared with 6% of those who had care available. 

Yet, even though 86% reported their college provided mental health services to LGBTQ students, many also said there were barriers to getting care. One third said they did not feel comfortable going, 29% reported long wait lists and 17% had privacy concerns. 

Queer students attending colleges with an LGBTQ center or other cultural resource also reported having fewer thoughts of suicide and making fewer attempts. More than six in 10, 63%, said their college offered these services. More than 40% of students at campuses that lacked an LGBTQ center said they had considered suicide in the past year, while 9% had attempted it. By contrast, rates dropped to 30% and 6%, respectively, on campuses with specific support services.  

The number of LGBTQ youth overall who reported seriously considering suicide rose from 40% in 2020 to 45% in 2022, according to Trevor researchers. The number reporting depression rose from 55% to a peak of 62% in 2021, before dipping to 58% this year. Rates of anxiety rose from 68% to 73% during the same period, while the rate at which queer youth attempted suicide stayed relatively constant, at 15% versus 14%.  

Virtually all transgender and nonbinary respondents to the 2022 survey reported worrying they would be denied gender-affirming medical care or access to bathrooms and sports teams. 

In June, the college-ranking website BestColleges.com reported that one fourth of queer students have because of challenges to their psychological well-being, and 92% said their mental health has negatively impacted their college experience. 

That study found LGBTQ students struggled to tap into new and supportive friend networks and to find counselors who understood their identities or who were queer themselves.  

Meanwhile, the higher ed collaborative , which works to strengthen mental health services of LGBTQ students, found of anxiety, loneliness, isolation among that population than their cisgender and heterosexual peers.

“No matter what amount of resources a college or university has, campus leaders can start by taking small steps to educate themselves on LGBTQ people and topics — and make their campus environment more inclusive,” says Rosen. “Even simple actions such as including gender-affirming language in materials, or self-educating about different LGBTQ identities and terminology, can make a huge difference in affirming LGBTQ college students.” 

It’s largely because of him and a handful of colleagues that library shelves today have space for books like “Two Grooms” — a historic accomplishment that McConnell, now 80 and enjoying a quiet retirement in Minneapolis with his husband, worries is endangered.

Since the slender storybook’s release, with LGBTQ and racial-equity themes have been challenged in dozens of states, according to the free speech advocacy organization PEN America. It’s the recorded by the American Library Association since it began tracking bans 20 years ago. 

“I suspect it’s probably by now been banned in Florida,” McConnell says. “I can see what’s coming. … We’ve got a fight on our hands.” 

Historically, LGBTQ-related books are among those most stolen from libraries — a metric that librarians, oddly or not, still use to gauge demand when ordering new volumes, despite decades-long efforts to reduce the stigma of browsing for books about queer people. In fact, while his status as one of the first gay grooms may be what most visibly enshrines McConnell in history, he played a pivotal role in creating library shelf space for “boy meets boy” tales such as his — as well as a wide array of LGBTQ fiction and books about queer history, culture, health care and other resources.

As a child, McConnell secretly visited the library looking to understand his same-sex attraction — and, finding no help, went on to a career as a librarian with a special interest in curating collections of LGBTQ books. 

Indeed, current-day librarians credit McConnell’s accomplishments — everything from convincing publishers that libraries would provide a market for positive portrayals of queer people to replacing pejorative subject headings in card catalogs — for helping to provide safety and privacy for youth and adults as they seek out information.

K-12 school librarians, for example, often receive regular training in how to accommodate LGBTQ students and are frequently the staff member who sponsors the school’s gay-straight alliance. This work is a direct outgrowth of advocacy by McConnell and a small group of colleagues who, in the immediate aftermath of the Stonewall uprising in June 1969, organized the American Library Association as the first professional group with a queer committee formally advocating for LGBTQ rights. 

McConnell’s story is a variation on a common one. In middle school, he walked from his home in Norman, Oklahoma, to the local library. While he was certain there was nothing wrong with him, he didn’t know why he was different or how to find other people like himself. It took some sleuthing, but he eventually found the right shelf at the nearby University of Oklahoma library — and, to his teenaged chagrin, a selection of titles that seemed designed to ruin his self-esteem. 

“Most of it was negative and most of it psychological,” he recalls. “And — how shall I put this? — lies.” 

Depictions of LGBTQ people living normal, fulfilling lives, he came to learn, mostly did not exist. “Publishers were afraid in those years to put out positive titles,” he says. “I knew during this time of great closetry for the community, and no information available except lies, that I was going to have a hard time — and the library was the answer.”

Another Stonewall-era activist with the American Library Association, the late Barbara Gittings, made her own exploratory trip to the library as a college freshman in 1949. “When I speak to gay groups and mention ‘the lies in the libraries,’ listeners over 35 know instantly what I mean,” she wrote in “Gays in Libraryland: The Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association: The First 16 Years.” “Most gays have at some point gone to books in an effort to understand about being gay or to get some help in living as gay.”

More than half a century later, despite current headlines, gay-related resources in any library — adult, university, K-12 — are plentiful. What was born as the association’s Task Force on Gay Liberation has evolved into the , which screens LGBTQ-themed books and bestows awards on the best. This year, “Two Grooms” was named a top-10 title for younger readers. 

A division of the larger organization, the American Association of School Librarians, offers a wealth of resources for educators, librarians and families. In 2018, it published “,” which, among other guidance, helps school staff explain and defend standards for what youth media centers should offer. 

GLSEN, a national nonprofit that supports schools to be safe places for LGBTQ students, offers , free, boxed sets of age-appropriate books. Now in 1,800 schools in 28 states, the 10-book collections include stickers with the group’s web address, posters and other classroom resources that let young readers know that the library offers even more. 

“We hear all the time that students can’t wait to get their hands on these books,” says Michael Rady, GLSEN’s Rainbow Library manager. “In Kansas, a librarian processed their new books on a Friday and shelved them immediately. By Monday, they were all checked out.”

Many of the ways in which present-day librarians try to ensure welcoming environments are outgrowths of strategies generated by Stonewall-era librarians. For instance, “Serving the Faithful Reader,” a 1976 series of skits, taught reference desk staff how to react to fearful visitors who might not be able or willing to say outright what they are after. 

School librarians are urged to set out books that feature LGBTQ youth of different identities, races, ethnicities and backgrounds not just for Pride month, but for showcasing other holidays or themes, says Rachel Altobelli, director of library services and instructional materials for Albuquerque Public Schools and a member of the group that authored the intellectual freedom report.

That way, all kinds of kids see themselves without having to ask, or even necessarily be looking for LGBTQ information — they might be fantasy fiction fans or get sucked in by graphic novels, she says. 

Librarians in Altobelli’s district are trained to understand that they may never know which books made a difference for which kids — and that’s a good thing. More children are coming out at younger ages than ever before, she notes, but lots still “want to be able to figure things out in their own time in their own way, and they don’t need any random grownups to know.”

“We tell our librarians, with some kids, ‘You’re not going to have that big, beautiful, magical  moment where they come in and thank you,” she adds. “But you nonetheless saved their life, and you might never know.”

Library privacy topped the 1970s Task Force on Gay Liberation agenda, too. Presentations for librarians included “Closet Keys,” which focused on good LGBTQ periodicals to subscribe to, and, “You Want to Look up WHAT?” covering how to index them. 

McConnell, Gittings and their contemporaries were determined to end the practice of forcing visitors to search through catalog cards bearing headings like “sexual deviance” and “sexual predation.” Along with librarians from other demographic groups demanding better representation, they pushed the Library of Congress to change a number of classifications.

“That put us into positive (shelving classification) numbers,” recalls McConnell, in turn enabling readers to be less secretive. 

The early task force also considered what it called “the stolen-book problem,” a phenomenon Altobelli and Rady say continues to this day. Whether LGBTQ-themed books disappear from a library’s inventory because students are embarrassed to check them out and simply take them, or don’t return them because they have no other sources of factual information, the rate at which the titles need to be reordered is something librarians see as a gauge of popularity.

As the current wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation has swept the country, demand for GLSEN’s Rainbow Libraries has increased, says Rady, who hopes to increase the number of schools with sets of books to 3,000 by the end of the year. The debate’s inflammatory tone, he says, has posed particular problems for youth in communities that have little LGBTQ visibility. 

“It’s really hard to be closeted. It’s really hard to come out. It’s really hard to be the only LGBT person in your community,” he says. “We’ve heard from librarians how it’s the first time [students] can dive into someone else’s story and see themselves.”

Helping people see a good life for themselves was, of course, McConnell’s goal when, freshly hired by the University of Minnesota to acquire books for its libraries, he wed Jack Baker. Baker had gone to law school specifically to find a legal path to marriage. In the face of the publicity that attended the nuptials, however, McConnell was fired. 

(The university has since apologized, and houses McConnell’s work-in-progress archive in its .) 

Using a license legally obtained in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, the two got married anyhow, in a 1971 ceremony with a hippie aesthetic faithfully depicted in “Two Grooms.” After, they fought for the validity of their union all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was dismissed in a single sentence.

When the court recognized marriage equality in Obergefell v Hodges in 2015, the justices made sure to reach back half a century and issue a new decision in McConnell’s case. “The court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry,” the jurists wrote. “No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v Nelson must be and now is overruled.”

“Two Grooms,” which uses a cake-baking metaphor to illustrate the process of nurturing a relationship, isn’t the only account of Baker’s and McConnell’s marriage that can be found in public libraries today. They would like to keep it that way.

“ ‘Don’t say gay,’ ” he scoffs. “Sweetheart, we got over that 50 years ago.”

So what would McConnell say to a student who goes into a school library where books like his have been removed? 

“I would say talk to someone that you know loves you and that you feel safe with and tell them,” he says. “I know that that’s scary. But is there someone that you feel safe with you can do that?”

The information would be voluntarily reported, anonymous and — notable at a time when some states are shunning data deemed politically unpalatable — collected nationwide. If implemented, the initiative would represent the largest-scale effort to date to document the experiences of the nation’s LGBTQ students. 

The push got a boost earlier this week from the White House when President Joe Biden, acting in recognition of Pride month, creating a committee to oversee the expansion of LGBTQ data collection throughout the federal government and directing the department to form a working group to advance policies to protect gay, lesbian and gender nonconforming students and families.     

The move comes after years of conversations among civil rights and education advocates who recognized both the need for the data and the complicated nature of collecting it in ways that are backed by scientific and medical best practices; invite LGBTQ participation; will generate information researchers need; and do not expose young people to the safety risks that coming out sometimes poses. 

“Not having questions asked about sexual orientation and gender identity creates an invisibility and makes it really hard for lawmakers and policymakers to be able to determine what the actual needs of the community are and how best to address them,” says Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign. “If you don’t have the data, it makes it hard to argue to a policymaker that they have to change their policies in order to protect LGBTQ folks.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, targeting LGBTQ Americans have been introduced in state legislatures this year, many aimed at transgender youth. 

In submitted in April, GLSEN, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ students, noted that NAEP results are used for scholarly research and to make crucial decisions about education policy and distribution of resources to schools. “To better determine how well our K-12 schools are serving the needs of all students, GLSEN urges the NAEP to add LGBTQ+ inclusive survey measures,” the organization wrote.

The change, civil rights groups say, would push schools to take note of and inform solutions.

First administered more than 50 years ago, NAEP has always documented how well U.S. schools meet the needs of students of different races and ethnicities, those with disabilities, low-income children and other subgroups. The tests are administered to a representative sample of fourth and ninth graders, with the results used to identify unmet needs, illuminate disparities and highlight successes.

In a reply to GLSEN sent before Biden’s executive order, the department said it was considering changes to NAEP assessments that would allow for expanded gender categories. The National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the exams, “is actively working towards including more gender identity options in future NAEP data collections both from school records (where we get student gender information) and teacher self-reports via the teacher survey questionnaire,” the agency replied. “We are exploring ways to disaggregate student record data into binary and non-binary as a start.”

No timeline for either change was given. While silent on the topic of modifying NAEP to report sexual orientation, the reply letter noted that the center has been part of within the federal government about the issue. 

LGBTQ rights groups say it’s not enough — and is happening too slowly. According to a survey by , in 2021 reported that politics were harming their mental health and that COVID-19 adversely affected their living situation, with just a third calling their home affirming. Forty-two percent said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year, a rate that rises to more than half for trans and non-binary students. 

Particularly problematic: States can opt out of collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity when administering some existing surveys, such as the two main Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviews of youth welfare, Warbelow says. This can obscure bias in ways many people might not anticipate, especially as schools often have no formal record of a student’s orientation and young people are leery of outing themselves. 

“We have some indication that LGBTQ students are overrepresented in disproportionate school discipline,” she says. “So one scenario [could be] where a straight student and an LGBT student are engaged in a disagreement. Oftentimes, it starts by that straight student engaging in bullying. And you see the teacher or the administration end up sending both kids down to the principal’s office. And then the penalty ends up being stiffer for the LGBTQ student.”

In recent years, scientifically and legally sound has gotten a major boost from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which in 2020 recommended that the federal government begin capturing more information and this past March followed up with specific guidance on how best to do so. 

Last spring, in the wake of the National Academies’ reports, came together to press federal agencies to adopt the recommendations. If they succeed, the government will, for the first time, collect data that could be used to draw apples-to-apples comparisons. 

Often referred to as the nation’s report card, NAEP is uniquely suited for collecting sensitive demographic information, proponents of the change say. Because the exams don’t assess individual schools, the results can’t be misused by officials bent on finding gay teachers or trans student athletes, for example. People who are uncomfortable participating can opt out. 

“We want the federal government to be required to collect data, but the individual participant to have the flexibility to be able to say that they’re not going to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity,” says Warbelow. 

For reasons ranging from the well-intended to the political, LGBTQ people are poorly represented in official statistics. For example, an estimated 5 in 6 LGBTQ adults can’t be identified by federal surveys documenting everything from rates of disease to housing discrimination, largely because they rarely include pertinent questions. The experiences of LGBTQ youth in school and in their communities are even more poorly documented. 

While education researchers and policymakers can talk about historically underserved students using deep, wide-ranging data about household income, race, disability, English learner status and experience with housing insecurity and the foster care system, what’s known about queer students is often drawn from small surveys or by extrapolating from those that tabulate information in different ways.

For two decades, GLSEN’s own surveys have consistently found that students subjected to in-school bullying and victimization have poorer educational outcomes, including lower attendance, grade-point averages and rates of college enrollment, than their heterosexual, cis-gendered peers. Students who experience both anti-LGBTQ victimization and racism are most likely to skip school out of fear, report feeling like they don’t belong and experience high levels of depression, the organization noted. Other surveys show that LGBTQ youth are disproportionately homeless and in foster care. 

Meanwhile, CDC surveys show the number of teens identifying as LGBTQ is growing, adding urgency to the need for accurate information. Using two CDC surveys, concluded that the percentage of youth who identify as “non-heterosexual” rose from 8% to almost 12% between 2015 and 2017. 

Estimates from the University of California Los Angeles’ Williams Institute reveal that the number of individuals ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender between 2017, when few of the surveys used to estimate the size of the population asked about gender identity, and 2020, when LGBTQ information was more widely solicited. 

States, however, are not required to include LGBTQ demographic information when they help conduct CDC surveys. This erases not just the kids, but the public health and safety crises they are experiencing. 

Initial shifts to including LGBTQ questions in federal research have shown that the problems are acute. The Census Bureau began collecting information about the sexual orientation and gender identity of people responding to its Household Pulse Survey a year ago. The initial surveys found that nearly half of LGBTQ people reported experiencing anxiety more than half of the days in a week — twice as many as non-LGBTQ respondents. 

Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign, has been part of the conversation about collecting more information about LGBTQ students for years. Schools and other institutions, she points out, have drawn lots of wrong conclusions based on simplistic interpretations of statistics.

“Sometimes the narrative that people take away is that this group of students does not perform well,” says Kowalski. “The blame, the burden is shifted to the student and the family instead of the system and the policy.” 

She wants the federal government to go further than compiling statistics, with their potential for misuse, to include the people affected — who understand — in designing new data systems and overseeing how the information is publicized and analyzed. 

“The tech piece is easy; you create another box to check,” she says. “The people piece is the hard piece — and we skip over it alot.”   

Disclosure: Disclosure: Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provide financial support to Data Quality Campaign and The 74.