The Stakes are High for LGBTQ+ Students this Fall
Back-to-school season looks different this year. Teary-eyed classroom drop-offs are replaced with busied conference calls, hastily put on mute while students greet their teachers online. Parent-teacher introductions are replaced with glitchy video calls. And for many LGBTQ+ students, a safe place to explore expression and identity is simply… gone.
When I was a kid, school was my safe place. It wasn’t free of lunch-room bullies or homophobic school resource officers, but it was a place where I could at least try to be myself, away from a household and a church that were trying to change me.
School isn’t always a safe place for LGBTQ+ students — in fact, many cases, it isn’t. But for students without a safe and affirming environment at home, or without a home at all, it can be a refuge. According to a 2018 report from the Human Rights Campaign, only 24 percent of LGBTQ+ youth can “definitely” be themselves as an LGBTQ+ person in their home. 48 percent of LGBTQ+ youth out to their parents say that their families make them feel bad for being LGBTQ+.
For LGBTQ+ students, the stakes to reopen schools — safely — are incredibly high.
At this point, even for schools with the best of intentions that are committed to providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ students, there are no good answers — only a series of inadequate choices for families, students, and schools alike that reflect the gross inaction and mismanagement of the Trump Administration.
In many districts, teachers are going to be responsible for instructing students in both real time and online. Parents — mothers, many of them — are going to be responsible for online instruction tech support and child caretaking, AND working full time. COVID-19 has already brought about the “first female recession”, as many mothers have had to make tough choices in the absence of school or childcare.
After the 2009 recession, state budgets cut millions of dollars to public education due to revenue losses and budget cuts. Those cuts disproportionately hit low-income schools and districts, and pushed thousands of educators out of the workforce- significantly impacting Black and Latinx students. Schools, school districts, childcare programs, and providers need substantial federal action if they are going to persist.
In the absence of substantial federal investment in public education, states will be forced to slash budgets again as they did in the years following the Great Recession, and public schools will suffer as a result.
Many LGBTQ+ students have lost a safe space this Fall — and potentially much longer — because of the Trump Administration’s inability to meet the crisis at hand.
But even for the schools that are making it happen for their students, who have raised their own funds to purchase PPE, for teachers who have figured out how to navigate Zoom hangouts and are providing an online virtual safe space for their students, it’s clear that the current Administration has entirely abdicated their responsibility to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students. Schools and districts that are committed to protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ students do so without the support of the Trump Administration.
Over the course of the past four years, U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have all shown clearly the intentions of the current Administration. Not only does the current Administration not care about the LGBTQ+ community, but they are committed to attacking the LGBTQ+ community, and using the tools at their disposal to institutionalize discrimination and bigotry.
Make no mistake — there is plenty that a President and an Administration that are friendly to LGBTQ+ students could be doing right now to support schools and families. We need only to look to the Obama-Biden Administration.
Over the course of the Obama-Biden Administration, the federal government took unprecedented action to dismantle discrimination and expand protections for the LGBTQ+ community. During my time at the U.S. Department of Education, I saw it first hand.
During the Obama-Biden Administration, the Justice Department and U.S. Department of Education released guidance to schools and educators designed to protect the rights of transgender students (that guidance was very quickly rescinded by the following Administration). The Department of Education investigated reports of discrimination against the transgender community in schools- another practice that the Trump Administration has since discontinued. There were summits and convenings with LGBTQ+ students to hear directly from their experiences when developing policies how to best protect students from bullying and harassment. I sat beside by then-Secretary of Education John King as the Department held a roundtable with LGBTQ+ students, listening and learning from the perspectives and experiences the students shared with us that day.
The next Administration must pick up this legacy and work hard to ensure that schools can be a safe refuge for LGBTQ+ students.
There are two massive responsibilities that the next Administration will have to undertake on their first days in office: the first is to invest heavily in public education. By approving COVID relief that invests heavily in K-12 education and in early learning childcare programs, the federal government can prevent massive teacher layoffs and school closures. With additional funds schools can purchase PPEs for teachers and school staff, and acquire cleaning equipment so that they can begin reopening — safely.
The next Administration will also have to recommit the role of the Federal government in protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ students. Following the lead of the Obama-Biden Administration is a good place to start: by allowing the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education to once again investigate reports of discrimination against transgender students and re-releasing guidance on how educators can best protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students, the next Administration can clearly signal its intention to once again stand against bigotry and hatred.
Vice President Biden has released several, comprehensive plans to invest in public education, to reopen schools safely, and to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students in schools. I believe that for anyone who wants to reopen schools safely and protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students in schools, Vice President Biden is the only option this November.
I’ve said that school was my safe place — and as a gay kid from the South, I don’t say that lightly. I did not have a welcoming household when I came out, and school was the only place that I felt safe.
If I were a student today, I don’t know where I would turn.
The next administration will have to work hard to help schools recover from COVID and to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ students. There is an imperative on the federal government to protect students from discrimination and do what they can to expand educational equity and opportunity. Let’s make sure the next Administration is one committed to reopening schools safely, providing teachers and childcare workers the resources that they need, and providing a refuge for LGBTQ+ students across the nation. Let’s elect Joe Biden.
Levi Bohanan works in childcare and P-12 education policy. Levi was an appointee at the U.S. Department of Education in the Obama Administration.
