I am weary.
And I am furious.
And I don’t even know how to begin. I don’t know how to get our district admin to hear, to understand the harm they have done, the harm they are accepting in their
Silence.
So, not knowing how to begin, all I can do is begin.
And though this day is not about me . . . It is a little bit about me, and I will begin with telling you who I am. I begin here because this choice by our district, this choice of
Silence
Is for me so very personal. I do not have the privilege to see any of this as an academic exercise. I do not have the privilege of
Silence.
I am a transgender woman. I have worked in this district for almost three decades,
I came out two years ago. And I don’t know how to explain this next part. I want to tell you of the love I felt at my school. The unexpected full and strong welcome from my principal, Sara Cutler, from my assistant principal, Steven Blue, from leadership and colleagues and the so so many students. After I came out I watched as queerphobic slurs dropped and queer children began to pull back their hoodies and step out of the corners where they had found a degree of safety. Diversity matters my loves. I was brought in fully as we undertook the work to become a truly anti-racist queer-affirming school.
Together.
But that part of the story, that part alone
Misleads.
Because the hate and fear from district leaders who accepted transphobia as, “Just a valid opinion” began the work to take me out. And they did this, I suspect, with little understanding of what they did. I can guess that it is likely every attack against me for the last year and a half, every snub of our queer children for the last two years, has been done without thought toward harm, but the harm came because our district has made the active decision to be “Not Queer Affirming”. It is an active absence.
It is
Silence.
Over this last 17 months my district has come after me for daring to pee in the same bathrooms my cisgender peers have used for decades. They fired my principals, Sara and Steven1, for their work to protect me from my own school district. They replaced Sara and Steven with a new leadership who are at best, “Not a transphobe” (which is to say, they are not queer affirming and do not understand, nor are they willing to understand, the harm that they do). I was stripped of all direct contact with students—I was not even granted a Zoom classroom to teach from. The enrichment space I built over the last six years was demolished and everything that we’d imbued with love was tossed in dumpsters, including the library we’d built over that time. And now, I am barred from entering the building I loved to teach the students who love me. I am barred from leading classes on our school grounds. I am barred even from entering to hand out materials to a few students who have done extra2.
And my district and my school’s leaders always have a pleasant excuse, a condescending rationale for their actions, which is just a form of
Silence.
This is where I am.
This is my personal story.
And this isn’t what we are talking about here, except in this: My story begins with silence from my district leaders. And that silence grew. That silence grows. I am your canary in the coal mine of our district’s politics, and my loves, the air is toxic.
And it will remain toxic until our district finally learns to break the silence.
There is no repair for the harm done to me.
Except if our district finally and at last, breaks the silence.
We must support openly, loudly, and repeatedly, our marginalized students, staff, and families. We must support our transgender children and we must be actively anti-racist, understanding that our Black students are also queer. Our Black students are also transgender.
Instead, our district insists on silos. Black Or transgender Or disabled Or Neuro-diverse or
Or
Or
It makes me so weary. Understand. All those “Ors” should be ands! Breaking us apart is another form of
Silence
Our children are under attack across our nation. Law after law is proposed, and too often enacted, denying our children life saving medicines and care. Do you think it doesn’t matter? Those laws won’t be enacted here is what I hear. So why worry? Please understand that casual privilege of seeing our pain as a rationale exercise in lawmaking is another way of saying
Silence
Break the silence.
Can I be honest here, can I tell you why it matters? I lived that life my loves. When I was growing up, no one could hear that a child, born with an unfortunate appendage, could be a girl. I was subjected to the casual, pervasive hate and fear of the entirety of society. My identity reduced to mockery in a Monty Python sketch or Dave Chapelle riff or JK Rowling screed. And no one knew they attacked me. They were just having fun. They were just joking. I know the pain. I pray that my district leaders abandon the playbook of hate and fear. Without hope, beyond hope, still I hope for my district to listen. I wait for the leaders to speak for our transgender children, but
Silence
Break the silence
I will be at the capitol to speak for our students against the hate coming down from republican legislators, replaying the hate flowing across our nation. I know I will hear many powerful voices speaking for our children, and I will hear the hate too. But our district? What we have heard so far is
Silence
Break the silence.
Can you understand the harm? Do you insist that, “Well, we don’t need to speak. Governor Evers will veto the hate.” But understand, each transgender person hears the
Silence
Break the silence.
I grew up in a world in which I was required to play sports as if I were a boy. And after the event, well, I was the girl in the boy’s locker room. Hiding in the form of a boy to find some measure of safety.
I loved track and field. But I stopped running.
I stopped playing.
My world could never have seen me as I am.
We must be better. And it is not enough to say, well, we “allow” transgender children and young adults to play on the team that matches the gender they declare. “Allow” should not be part of it.
“Allowing” without understanding and welcoming and strong alliance is just another step in
Silence.
Break the silence
I hear administrators say, “But I’m not transphobic! I love all people!”, which is just another way to say . . .
Silence.
Break the silence.
I hear, “But we made a statement. Or two.” But seriously, an occasional statement is not nearly enough when our children are under attack daily. An occasional statement is just
Silence.
Break the silence.
When will you listen? When will you speak up? When will you begin? When will our queer staff, and most importantly, our queer students gain a platform where they can be heard each day.
Our transgender students hear the hate thrown down across the nation. Our transgender children see the laws seeking to control their bodies, seeking to ban them from sports. And what do we hear from their school leaders . . .
Silence.
Break the Silence
Our school district leaders say that we uplift our black children. We must center our work on our black children and this is so right and so necessary. But when it comes to our transgender black children . . .
Silence.
Break the silence.
And here’s the thing. This shouldn’t be me. A queer transgender woman attacked by her own district should not be the one to teach her district to break the silence. I should not be the one explaining to our leaders that they cannot be anti-racist if they are not also queer affirming. Just as I cannot be queer affirming without being anti-racist.
Our Black children, our Black families, are under continued attack across our nation. I am not the person to speak on this, I have too much to learn, but this I know: We must each of us become actively and powerfully anti-racist. But in doing so, we cannot decide to abandon queer Black folx or Black folx with disabilities or neuro-divergent Black folx. Our anti-racism must be Queer-Affirming. Our anti-racism must be inclusive.
Does this feel wrong to you? Does it feel wrong for me to speak of anti-racism? Please understand, it is easy for a leadership that has shown no thought to queer affirmation to silo this moment into an “other”. An, “Oh, so those queer folx want this or that.” We are both and all and many. And if we are siloed into these false groups, we will never break the silence.
And we can do this. We can become powerful together,
If we give up the habit of
Silence (Break the silence).
The district leaders will likely argue that they didn’t fire anyone, they just reassigned them to positions they didn’t want with the hope they would voluntarily leave — I just feel saying fired is simpler, and more honest.
And yes, our district leaders and my own current admin have excuses and rationalizations and stories to tell for how all that I have listed is just a series of unfortunate events. But the through line: Attacked for peeing; admin fired for protecting me; new admin hired who by evidence of actions are not queer affirming or allies; reassigned from direct contact with students; classroom demolished; banned from working with students at school, on the grounds, and even in small contacts of one-on-one meetings — all of this seems pretty evidently transphobic despite any individual excuses along the way.