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LGBTQ - AB 1955, signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom last week, will prohibit educational entities from “enacting or enforcing any policy…that requires an employee…to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent unless otherwise required by law.” The new law also prohibits “retaliation…against an employee on the basis that the employee supported a pupil” in such situations.
Conservatives are not happy.
Elon Musk calls AB 1955 an “attack” on families and “the final straw”, explaining that “because of this law…SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”
Anti-teachers union crusader Rebecca Friedrichs blames teachers unions as well as “Marxists” for what she calls a “diabolical law.”
Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage, says the controversial new law supports “school-wide conspirac[ies]” to “deceive” parents.
While educators are often accused of pushing pro-LGBTQ “gender ideology” on kids, in reality, the main motivation for educational institutions’ acceptance and welcoming of LGBTQ youth is not ideological or political. It is instead born of educators’ desire to minimize bullying and teen suicide.
The primary targets of bullying have long been LGBTQ youth, particularly gay male and trans youth. This is no frivolous concern–one study found that 12% of LGBTQ youth attempted suicide in 2023.
The “parents’ rights” movement is pushing measures that put LGBTQ youth in harm's way. According to the Movement Advancement Project, eight states, all Republican-led, have passed laws mandating that schools notify parents of a student's gender transition. Even in liberal California, nearly a dozen school districts now have policies with some form of requirement that schools inform parents if a student appears to identify as transgender or gender-nonconforming.
Perhaps no district has received more criticism from conservative critics for its transgender policies than the Los Angeles Unified School District, particularly over its instruction “When school personnel find it important to discuss a student’s gender identity or expression with parents (if, for example, the student is being bullied based on their gender identity or expression), school personnel…shall take into consideration the safety, health and well-being of the student in deciding whether to disclose the student’s gender identity or expression to parents.” For rabble-rousing conservative activist Christopher Rufo, a key figure in the parents’ rights movement, this is LAUSD’s “radical gender-theory curriculum” which advises teachers to “keep the student’s gender identity a secret from parents.” But educators aren’t keeping students’ gender identities “secret”—we’re respecting our students’ needs and privacy. Rufo also criticizes LAUSD’s instruction that a “school shall accept the gender identity that each student asserts.” But if a student tells us their gender identity, who are we to argue or dispute it?
While LGBTQ issues are often seen as a white, middle-class concern, most of the youth AB 1955 serves to protect are neither white nor middle class. Like many large public school districts, LAUSD's student body is heavily low income, minority, and immigrant. As a whole, Latino and other immigrant families tend to be socially conservative.
My students have often described their parents’ and families’ attitudes towards LGBTQ, and one thing is very clear–LGBTQ youth often have very good reasons for not wanting their gender identity or sexual orientation being disclosed to their families.
During the COVID school closures, one of my students was kicked out of her parents’ home, largely over her sexual orientation. She struggled to finish her senior year and graduate, while working long hours to pay her rent.
Another LGBTQ student wrote a powerful piece for Speech & Debate called Maricon, in which he detailed how this word—akin to “faggot” in Spanish—was used cruelly by certain family members, and had haunted his youth.
A 2022 national survey conducted by the Trevor Project found that fewer than 1 in 3 young people who identify as transgender or nonbinary report having gender-affirming homes.
At school it is very important that students trust teachers and counselors. Is a transgender student who is being abused or is depressed or suicidal going to confide in a teacher or counselor if they feared it would result in them being outed to their families? If we did betray students in this manner, would we still be considered “trusted adults” that students should go to if they learn there's going to be a fight or if they see a weapon on campus?
When it comes to reducing LGBTQ-related bullying, schools’ LGBTQ-friendly policies have worked. A study published in Pediatrics found a “significant improvement over bullying and related concerns in 10 out of 13 indicators (including a decrease in bullying and victimization) for in-person forms (ie, physical, verbal, relational) and cyberbullying.”
The study, which examined the prevalence of bullying and related behaviors between 2005 and 2014, also found “an increase in the perceptions that adults do enough to stop bullying and students’ feelings of safety and belonging at school. Prevalence of bullying and related behaviors generally decreased over this 10-year period.”
I often tell my students that the biggest difference between what I see as a teacher today and what I saw as a student at a nearby high school 40 years ago is the monumental gulf between attitudes towards LGBTQ then and now.
When a trans student asks their teacher to use their new name and/or new pronoun, we write it on the seating chart, apologize in advance that occasionally we might forget, and then move on, giving it no more significance than when a student asks us to address them by their middle name instead of their first name.
We aren’t conspiring with students to deceive parents; we're accepting our students as they are. AB 1955 offers needed protection to LGBTQ youth and the educators who help them.
(Glenn Sacks teaches Social Studies at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District.)
