“I didn’t really feel like a girl, but I didn’t really feel like a boy,” said Lucy, a young nonbinary student in Washtenaw County. “I really like LGBTQ+ and what it stands for because it’s a whole community of people who support it or are part of it; who can be whoever they want and look however they want.”
“I have students right now who are terrified and don’t know what these new executive orders are going to mean for them,” said Lucy’s mom, who is an educator in Washtenaw County. “That’s one of the hardest parts for all of us: what is this going to mean?”
When I asked C (her requested identification), a recent highschool graduate who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, what she thought of the Trump’s anti-trans executive order regarding education, her bleak response was, “Which anti-trans order are you referencing? There are too many of them.”
The executive order by the Trump administration entitled, “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT,” is touted by the administration as only (“only”) being anti-trans and anti-nonbinary. However, the order itself threatens the rights of all LGBTQ people, including those of students in our schools.
This executive order laid the groundwork for additional orders that demand to dictate what students and educators can read about, talk about, and even who students can be.
The Human Rights Campaign says, “[The order] utilizes inflammatory and dangerous language to bully LGBTQ+ youth and allies who attempt to support them…It calls the concept of gender identity part of a “radical-anti-American ideology”. […] It also encourages the prosecution of teachers and officials who respect a student’s transition.”
I asked Lucy how they felt about these orders. “I don’t really like it,” they said. “People can act however they want, wear any clothes they want, be any gender they want, and they can love whoever they want.”
“This is going to hurt LGBTQ+ students,” said C. “Of course that’s something I’m worried about as part of the community. But even if you’re a student who’s not LGBTQ+, you should still care. If not because you have basic human empathy — then because it’s going to hurt you too [regarding school funding].”
Lucy knows firsthand how harmful it is to be in a school environment where conversation about one’s identity is not encouraged or supported by the educators.
They had the unique (and enviable experience) of being in an incredibly affirming and educated household. When Lucy came out as nonbinary (we’ll get to Lucy’s wonderful story on this later!) a few summers ago, they were excited to share their gender identity when they returned to elementary school.
To help their classmates understand, Lucy wanted to bring a book into class to share with everyone. The book they chose was, What Are Your Words?, an accessible and gentle all-ages introduction to a variety of identities.
But Lucy’s teacher (at Ann Arbor Public Schools) refused to read it. The teacher said they would not directly address gender identity, or Lucy’s desire to have support to talk to their classmates around it. The teacher said they would answer questions as they came up, but that’s it.
Lucy’s family asked to bring the social worker into the conversation, but shockingly, the social worker backed up the teacher.
Lucy began experiencing an incredible amount of bullying that the teacher did not put a stop to. The bullying became so harmful that Lucy left public school and homeschooled until her family could find a more supportive school, with teachers who have proven they will respect and support Lucy’s identity, and with fellow students who share Lucy’s identity or are affirming.
With a maturity many adults could learn from, Lucy spoke on their bullying experience, reflecting that it represented what was going on with their bullies, and wasn’t a reflection on them.
“I learned to read pretty fast, and if you read a lot, you usually get good at writing since you see a lot of words in books and novels. I think they were jealousy about me being so good at writing and reading. That was a trigger for them. People make mistakes. I forgave them.”
Lucy’s experience so clearly represents that so many queer children know early on that they’re queer. Fortunately for Lucy, they were in a family that provided exposure to and affirmation of various identities, so Lucy was able, early on, to put words to the feelings they were experiencing.
“I didn’t really feel like a girl, but I didn’t really feel like a boy, and I didn’t feel like both — I felt like neither. I’ve known about LGBTQ for a while,” Lucy said. Because of their mother’s work in academia and literature, they were exposed early on to nonbinary as an identity. “I had signs of being nonbinary even as a little kid,” Lucy says. “When I got the bed I have, Mom was like, ‘You have a big girl bed!’ and I shouted, ‘It’s not a big girl bed! It’s just a bed!’ Sometimes when I was with my Nana, I would yell at people for calling me cute.”
Lucy said for a while, they were staying as a girl but considering nonbinary as an identity, and then they met a nonbinary kid at a summer camp. They were friends just for the week, and Lucy never saw them again, but they helped Lucy make their decision. “They kind of led me along the way without even realizing it,” Lucy says.
Lucy still enjoys some stereotypical “girl” things, like clothes: “I go into the girls’ section usually. The boys’ section doesn’t have stuff I’m really fond of. It’s not as colorful.”
(As a toddler mom who likes to dress her triplet boys in colorful clothes, I agree with Lucy on the lack of color in the typical boys’ section!)
But unfortunately for families like Lucy’s and mine, under Trump’s new executive orders, it might not even be safe for children to wear clothes sold to the opposite sex, or to play with toys, or cut their hair in ways that aren’t stereotypical.
“Social transitions” are under threat, which is dangerous for all children — not just LGBTQ ones.
Social transition is defined as “the process of adopting a ‘gender identity’ or ‘gender marker’ that differs from a person’s sex.” But this is explicitly defined to include actions as small as calling a child by a nickname, and sets the stage to go after children who are merely wearing what someone in authority deems “the wrong clothes”.
RELATED: Local Moms on Trump’s Election and Concerns for Families and Queer Kids
The executive orders even threaten to eliminate funding for any school that provides any conversation, let alone education, in the classroom to what the Trump administration deems an “anti-American ideology”.
“Schools and colleges aren’t meant to teach only what the president believes in; that’s utterly absurd,” said C. “Trump saying he doesn’t believe in ‘gender ideology’ — so therefore he’s going to strip the schools of millions of students of their funding — is insane. I don’t agree with what every other college is teaching, either, but that doesn’t mean that I get to decide that the students there don’t deserve to learn.”
These orders have implications beyond merely education, though — they attack what might be the only safe space for LGBTQ+ young people.
“I didn’t grow up in a household that was particularly accepting of my identity or of the LGBTQ+ community in general,” said C. “I know so many other queer youth feel the same, and many have endured abusive situations far worse than I could imagine.”
For these queer youth, C noted that college is their first opportunity to carve out a safe space outside an unsafe or unsupportive home; to be who they want to be without fear of retaliation, criticism, or even physical endangerment.
“If home isn’t a safe space, and school no longer is either, where exactly do we have left to turn?” C said. “Your college years are supposed to be the first time in your life where you really have the freedom to experiment and learn and figure stuff out, but if funding is cut to your school and you can no longer do those things at the one place you thought you could…what next?”
In an irony that many progressives have also expressed, C said, “It’s crazy to me that a known cheater and sexual offender can say he has women’s best interests in mind here, and people will actually swallow that obvious of a lie. [Trump’s] federal government threatening to investigate schools that recognize the irrefutable existence of transgender people for violations of Title IX is so horribly ironic.”
Amidst such a sobering topic, I asked Lucy to share a bit of hope: if they could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
They immediately knew what they wanted: they would make it so that everyone in LGBTQ+ felt normal. Different, but normal. “By normal I mean boys can wear girl clothes, girls can wear boy clothes, they can be transgender, and wear whatever they want. Oh, and world peace.” (But really, wouldn’t the world be a far more peaceful place if we accepted everyone’s identities and expressions of love?)
For LGBTQ+ students who are finding all the current changes worrisome, Lucy shares some of their favorite coping strategies.
“I like to listen to music, and reading helps me a lot. It’s one of my number 1 things I love to do. I also like coloring while listening to music.”
Lucy puts in a special pitch for books, even ones that aren’t especially calming in nature: “Even fight scenes in books help me calm down. Books are one of my favorite things that aren’t alive. I might feel sad for the characters but it still helps me calm down. I just like reading books in general when I’m anxious, sad, angry, scared. Fight scenes can distract me, but a calm happy scene also distracts.”
As an avid reader myself with a master’s in Children’s Literature, I love hearing how Lucy is finding solace and community in books. And fortunately there are so many books out there that are supportive of LGBTQ+ experiences — check out some fantastic recommendations here, many of which are available at our local bookstores.
We’d love to hear from more of our readers. What concerns about our schools do you have? What would you like to read more about? Let us know in the comments.
