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Tag: LGBT issues

  • Texas School Will Allow Trans Student In School Musical After Major Backlash

    Texas School Will Allow Trans Student In School Musical After Major Backlash

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    A school district in northern Texas announced unexpectedly this week that it will let a high school performance of “Oklahoma” go on as initially planned — including allowing a transgender student to play a lead role and reinstating actors who had been cut for dressing in clothes for roles that didn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.

    The unanimous decision from the Sherman Independent School District’s board of trustees, a reversal of a controversial decision that Sherman High School made earlier this month, is a rare win for LGBTQ+ youth in the town. But many residents say they are still concerned about the influence that conservative politics and religion have on public schools.

    Sherman High School made national headlines when the principal cut Max Hightower, a transgender high school senior, and several other students from a production of “Oklahoma.” The principal reportedly told parents the school would only cast students “born as females in female roles and students born as males in male roles.” The district then announced it would postpone the show because of sexual content and profanity — a move it walked back days later by saying it would allow an age-appropriate version of “Oklahoma.” That version did not include the character of Ali Hakim, whom Hightower had been cast to play.

    Dozens of people, including parents, local college students and current and former Sherman High students, packed into the district office Monday to voice their disappointment. For over two hours, they shared their experiences of being queer and trans in Sherman, described the home they’d found in theater programs, and emphasized the need for better protections for LGBTQ+ students.

    After the public comment section ended, the seven members of the board of trustees began a closed session that lasted several hours. Most of the crowd petered out into the dark, some gathering for a meal nearby and others lingering to debrief or share a hug, according to those who were there.

    By then, Hightower was exhausted. He and his mother drove home while his dad stayed at the meeting. Hightower took a long shower to unwind, worried about what the board might decide. When his friend texted him that the show would go on, he couldn’t stop smiling.

    The next day at school, as the cast went on a field trip to a costume shop, all of the actors cried and hugged one another. “We all celebrated in the choir room this morning,” Hightower told HuffPost on Tuesday. “It was just so moving.”

    “When we were first driving up to the board meeting, we were expecting to see some kind of hate, but there was an overwhelming amount of support,” he said. “I was shocked.”

    At the meeting, Leon Espinoza, a 20-year-old trans man, told the board he was risking coming out to his family by speaking.

    “I have been a member of the theater since I was 4 years old. It has been my safe space,” Espinoza, a junior at nearby Austin College, said to the board. “I have been a member of the Sherman community since I was 6 years old. It has never been my safe space.”

    Before he returned to his seat, Espinoza hugged Hightower’s father.

    Some alumni of Sherman High School, including queer and transgender former students, spoke at the meeting and explained how anti-LGBTQ+ policies are not a new problem in the district.

    One alum, Anna Clarkson, who previously directed choir at Sherman High, said that in 2015 she was asked by now-district Superintendent Tyson Bennett if she thought it was appropriate that the school’s production of “Legally Blonde” had gay and lesbian characters. She said Bennett, who was at the time assistant superintendent, asked her to make the lesbian character straight instead.

    By the end of the evening, after their closed session, the board of trustees reversed the initial decision about the show’s casting.

    “We want to apologize to our students, parents and our community regarding the circumstances that they have had to go through to this date,” the board wrote in a statement. “We understand that our decision does not erase the impact this has had on our community, but we hope that we will reinforce to everyone, particularly our students, that we do embrace all of our Board goals, to include addressing the diverse needs of our students and empowering them for success in a diverse and complex world.”

    The decision came as a surprise to many in an overwhelmingly red town, and in a state that has passed seven bills targeting LGBTQ+ youth and where the attorney general has investigated families of transgender youth.

    Many people in Sherman say the commotion over transgender actors and casting in the school musical is a symptom of larger, longstanding battles about conservative Christian priorities and their rise in public education.

    “This is not just about Max losing his role. This is not just about ‘Oklahoma,’” Espinoza told HuffPost. “This is about the intolerance of an older generation and the fact that they wish to not just deny, but actively prohibit kids from having safe spaces where they can be themselves, where they can have fun and where they can feel joy.”

    Matthew Krov, a parent and 22-year resident of Sherman, said he first became concerned about the school district’s attitudes toward LGBTQ+ students this spring, when Bennett hired a local pastor to be the district’s director on character education.

    The district’s communications director, Meghan Cone, said in an email that the director of character education role is “based on the state-required Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.” Cone pointed to the school’s website, which defines “character education” as programming to help students develop “positive character traits.”

    Krov said he was troubled by what he saw as the increasing influence of religion on schools. He noted that Bennett has introduced the “Stand in the Gap” program, which gives local churches a greater role in education through mentorship programs and “community wide prayer events” for schools.

    In the past year, Texas has pushed forward legislation to increase the role of religion in public schools, including passing a law this spring that gives school districts the right to “employ a chaplain instead of a school counselor to perform duties required of a school counselor under this title.” Lawmakers have also considered bills to require classrooms to display a copy of the Ten Commandments and provide students with time to pray or read religious texts.

    Krov said that in May, he saw Anna Wylie, a member of the board of trustees, protesting at a local LGBTQ+ event, holding up a sign that read “What are you confused about?” as students entered. Wylie, a member of the local tea party group Texoma Patriots, appears to be visible in a photo taken at then-President Donald Trump’s speech in Washington, D.C., before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Wylie declined to comment to HuffPost.)

    After that incident, Krov said he asked Bennett over email and in phone calls how the board was going to support LGBTQ+ students. He said Bennett told him at the time that this was not a district issue.

    Cone did not answer a question about the district’s support for LGBTQ+ students. Bennett did not directly respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

    The Sherman board of trustees announced a special meeting for Friday to open an investigation into the district’s handling of “Oklahoma.” The district said it plans to consult with its legal counsel and consider “possible administrative leave” and other actions against Bennett.

    “Sherman is at a crossroads,” Krov said. “I think there’s a tipping point right now where we’ve got a lot of growth and people fighting that growth, and I think [Bennett] and others who have been here forever have a very particular view of how Sherman is and want to see a certain agenda.”

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  • Anxiety, Fear Fill West Virginia Transgender-Health Clinic

    Anxiety, Fear Fill West Virginia Transgender-Health Clinic

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    MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — The tiny clinic where physicians prescribe hormones and other medications to transgender teenagers shares the same campus where West Virginia kids travel to receive treatments for rare cancer, heart surgery and other health care difficult to get anywhere else.

    In a rural state purported to have the highest number of transgender youths per capita and some of the nation’s worst health outcomes, West Virginia University Medicine doctors say transgender health care is just as essential as the other lifesaving services they provide.

    But it could soon be banned. Ignoring doctors’ pleas, lawmakers are preparing to vote this week on a bill that would outlaw certain health care for transgender minors, including hormone therapy and fully reversible medication that suspends the physical changes of puberty, buying patients and parents time to make future decisions about hormones.

    “There’s a lot of anxiety and fear in our exam rooms right now,” said Dr. Kacie Kidd, medical director of WVU Medicine Children’s Adolescent Gender and Sexual Development Clinic.

    State lawmakers and West Virginia’s largest health care provider are at odds over how and when to treat adolescents with gender dysphoria — the severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

    WVU’s classification among the highest level of American research universities is often lauded by the same state leaders who have been unwilling to listen to experts when it comes to gender-affirming care. During a meeting last week at which Kidd testified before lawmakers, Senate Finance chair Eric Tarr described the treatments as “child abuse.”

    “I was caught off guard to see that WVU Medicine has a clinic to change the sex of children in West Virginia,” the Republican said, leading a charge to reject amendments that would have allowed some care to continue. Two physicians on the committee — both Republicans — expressed concern, saying “medically uneducated” people shouldn’t be making such decisions.

    Lawmakers in West Virginia and other states advancing similar legislation often characterize gender-affirming treatments as medically unproven, potentially dangerous in the long term and a symptom of “woke” culture.

    Yet every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, supports gender-affirming care for youths.

    The legislation in West Virginia also includes a ban on gender-affirming surgery for minors, something medical professionals emphasize does not happen in the state.

    Lia Farrell, a WVU medical student from New York, said it was clear to her that lawmakers have “no idea what providing this care actually entails.”

    “It’s really cutting off your nose to spite your face,” she said. “This isn’t going to accomplish anything except harming people and preventing us from doing our jobs.”

    Opened in 2021, WVU Medicine Children’s Adolescent Gender and Sexual Development Clinic looks like any other health care setting — animal-shaped stickers cover the walls, examination rooms, machines to check blood pressure and heart rates. But providers wear lanyards with colorful buttons displaying pronouns and jackets decorated with a rainbow heart and stethoscope — something Kidd calls “visible reminders” of support.

    Some families travel for hours on mountain roads to meet with providers, including therapists. While they talk, young people draw to calm their nerves. Kidd has several patients’ creations displayed in her workspace, including one favorite, a unicorn.

    A West Virginia native, Kidd was training to be a pediatrician at WVU when she began meeting transgender kids hospitalized after suicide attempts.

    Patients have described gender dysphoria to her as a profound, deeply rooted frustration — even sometimes anger — that the person in the mirror “isn’t who they are.”

    “I’ve had young people tell me that they can’t imagine a future where they can be happy,” she said. “That’s one of the most heartbreaking things I ever hear.”

    Dakota Kai, 17, spent childhood in and out of psychiatric care because of depression and anxiety related to gender dysphoria.

    Kai said the testosterone gel they apply to their shoulders, which has caused their voice to deepen and facial hair to sprout, has saved their life.

    “It’s literally going to kill people if they can’t access this care,” Kai said. “It’s difficult to try to exist in a place where it’s threatening just being yourself.”

    Kai is now planning to start college this year and eventually become a cardiovascular surgeon.

    Kai’s mother, Sherry, said she was apprehensive at first about hormone therapy. But after conversations with providers, she and her child confidently decided to pursue it and have no regrets. Transgender minors can’t begin medical interventions without parental consent.

    “The amount of ignorance about the subject is honestly astounding,” she said. “Watching our society respond with such emotional fervor about something that they obviously logically don’t understand is terrifying.”

    She said nothing about the care is pushed on patients, “lightly talked about or treated as if it’s no big deal.”

    “They are not trying to play God,” Sherry said. “They’re out there trying to perform a service of helping people, and because of science and because of time and because of studying the concept of being trans are able to say, ‘This is not fictitious or just a whim. This is a scientific, medical fact.’”

    As the ban advances through the Legislature, Kidd’s staff works late in the clinic, leaving long after dark to fit in appointments with frantic families.

    “It is heartbreaking,” Kidd said, “to have to tell young people and families that we can’t provide the care that they need.”

    This week, providers saw a 12-year-old patient, a transgender girl whose relatives said they’d known her identity since she was 3. She expressed distress about her voice deepening or growing hair on her underarms and face — concern about her body betraying her, of not being seen for who she is.

    They talked through options, which included puberty-blocking medication lawmakers seek to ban — a fully reversible pause on puberty that provides significant relief for dysphoria.

    Another was a 16-year-old patient who was hospitalized for the most recent time last year. When he came in, he couldn’t speak at all. His parents were terrified.

    But on this visit, he chattered happily about a new pet and a video game he couldn’t put down.

    “It’s such a joy, a year later for this particular patient, for this conversation to be profoundly different,” Kidd said.

    Other children talked with therapists about anxiety over a school dance or asked for help on plans to talk to relatives about their gender identity. No medical interventions are provided to patients before the age of puberty.

    El Didden, a WVU medical student who worked in the clinic as a researcher, said the providers are role models for “going above and beyond and acting like it’s the bare minimum.”

    Didden, who is transgender, started hormone therapy the summer before starting medical school, when only a Planned Parenthood clinic was offering the service in the state. It inspires Didden as a future physician to see compassionate health care for people “who don’t normally get that level of respect and care.”

    Kidd’s catchphrase for the clinic is “happy, healthy, thriving.” Didden wishes lawmakers understood.

    “They think that in the choice between having a trans kid and having a dead kid, they prefer to have a dead kid,” Didden said, something that is “just existentially horrifying to think about.”

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  • Feds Open Investigation Into Texas Schools After Removal Of LGBTQ Books

    Feds Open Investigation Into Texas Schools After Removal Of LGBTQ Books

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    A Texas school district is facing an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) civil rights office after its superintendent was accused of discriminating against LGBTQIA+ students while ordering the removal of certain books from its libraries.

    The DOE’s Office for Civil Rights is looking into the Granbury Independent School District, located southwest of Fort Worth, under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a DOE spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

    The DOE declined further comment due to the ongoing investigation.

    News of the investigation, first reported by NBC, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune, follows the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) requesting a federal review of the district, under Title IX, back in July after it reportedly removed more than 125 books pending review for inappropriate content. Nearly 75% of these books are related to LGBTQIA+ characters or themes, the ACLU said.

    The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said it has opened an investigation into Texas’ Granbury Independent School District. This follows the ACLU requesting a probe over the district’s removal of LGBTQ books and comments made by the superintendent earlier this year.

    STEFANI REYNOLDS via Getty Images

    The ACLU also cited comments made by the schools’ superintendent to his schools’ librarians in January that reportedly denied the existence of transgender and non-binary individuals. A recording of the remarks was obtained by NBC News.

    “There are two genders. There’s male, and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women, and there are women that think they’re men,” Granbury Superintendent Jeremy Glenn told librarians at a district meeting, according to NBC News. “I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.”

    Glenn reportedly cited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s demand in November 2021 that state education officials develop statewide standards that prevent “pornography” and “other obscene content” from entering libraries. In addition, Abbott specified two memoirs that feature LGBTQIA+ characters and graphic images and descriptions of sex.

    “I think specifically what we’re getting at, let’s call it what it is. And I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this. It’s the, it’s the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sex — sexuality in books,” Glenn told school officials. He added that Granbury is a “very, very conservative community,” and those who don’t confirm should “hide it.”

    The Granbury School District later announced that its committee of educators and community members tasked with reviewing the books ultimately found eight books that were “sexually explicit and not age-appropriate.”

    “Two of the eight books did have LGBTQ+ themes, however, all of the books that were removed had sexually explicit and/or pervasively vulgar content,” it said back in March.

    A representative for the school district did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

    Efforts to ban books have proliferated nationwide over the past two years, along with threats to librarians.

    The American Library Association (ALA) reported in September that the number of book challenges seen during the first eight months of this year nearly matched 2021′s total, which was the highest in decades.

    “It used to be a parent had learned about a given book and had an issue with it. Now we see campaigns where organizations are compiling lists of books, without necessarily reading or even looking at them,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press.

    ALA President Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada said the censoring isn’t about kids — it’s about politics.

    “Efforts to censor entire categories of books reflecting certain voices and views shows that the moral panic isn’t about kids: it’s about politics,” she said in a past statement. “Organizations with a political agenda are spreading lists of books they don’t like.”

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