This is especially important for LGBTQ+ young people. For many of them, the internet is both a risk and a lifeline. It can expose them to harassment, bullying and harmful content. It is also often the first place where they discover language to describe who they are, see people like themselves reflected positively or find peers who accept and affirm them — particularly if their school or community does not.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, (95%) LGBTQ+ youth have used the internet to find information that helps them better understand their identity. The Trevor Project’s most recent found that nearly 4 out of 5 LGBTQ+ young people go online because connecting with others in daily life is hard and they feel they can be their complete selves online.

Research consistently shows this dual reality: In another Trevor Project study, an of LGBTQ+ youth said social media has both positive (96%) and negative (88%) impacts on their mental health and well-being. Importantly, LGBTQ+ young people who feel safe and understood in at least one online space reported 20% of attempting suicide in the past year and 15% lower odds of recent anxiety, particularly among LGBTQ+ youth of color. In other words, access to affirming online communities is not a distraction from well-being or learning; it can be a protective factor.

Schools, in particular, sometimes struggle to define their role in students’ online lives. But for young people, the boundary between virtual and real life is porous, if it exists at all. Trivializing or ignoring what happens online, both good and bad, misses real opportunities to help young people learn how to engage with one another and the world they are a part of. As native users and early adopters of these technologies, young people have powerful ideas about what tools they need and which protections may actually be helpful.

Safer online experiences do not happen by accident. They are shaped every day by the choices young people make, the guidance adults provide, the policies institutions adopt and the tools platforms design. As a youth mental health advocate and former visiting fellow at the Georgetown of Public Policy, I have heard a wide range of viewpoints. Yet, when drawing on , policy roundtables with youth, observations from LGBTQ+ online platform and conversations with LGBTQ+ young people, five themes consistently emerge about what they and the people who support them can do to help themselves stay safer and healthier online.

First: Seek out moderated, affirming communities.

Young people say that online spaces with active moderation (not mindless censorship), clear expectations for behavior and visible respect for diverse identities feel meaningfully safer. These include forums, chat rooms and platforms where harassment is addressed quickly and consistently, while discussions are allowed to flourish. When moderation is taken seriously, young people are more likely to . Schools and adults in a

position to influence youth can reinforce this by treating online community-building as a legitimate part of young people’s lives, not something to dismiss or discourage.

Second: Use safety tools, and know when to ask for help.

Blocking, muting, filtering keywords and resetting algorithms are concrete steps young people can take to reduce exposure to harmful content. But online safety tools are . Knowing when something feels wrong, how to report abuse and who to turn to offline matters just as much. Schools play a key role here: Treating online harassment with the same seriousness as in-person bullying and clearly explaining reporting options can make a real difference. Parents and caregivers can reinforce this by keeping lines of communication open and judgment-free.

Third: Set boundaries and respect limits.

The internet never sleeps, but young people need rest, food, movement and offline connection to thrive. It’s crucial to set personal boundaries around screen time and take breaks from triggering content. These habits are especially important during periods of high stress, such as exams or college applications, or when current events can overwhelm social media feeds with misinformation or politically motivated cruelty. These boundaries are often easier to maintain with support from friends, families and educators who can provide alternative opportunities for connection and stress relief.

Fourth: Protect privacy, especially around sensitive information.

Young people should be careful what information they share online, including basics like names or locations, as well as sensitive disclosures with chatbots about mental or sexual health. As artificial intelligence-powered tools become more common in schools and daily life, young people need clear guidance about what information is protected by privacy laws and what is not. Schools and parents should help students understand these distinctions, while directing them to services with strong confidentiality protections, such as licensed counselors, therapists, The Trevor Project, or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Fifth: Check in with yourself.

Students should ask themselves simple questions: Do online activities bring you joy or make you feel drained? Are you laughing or connecting — or just scrolling? Positive online experiences can include finding community and creative expression, learning new things, relaxing or enjoying media that represents their lives and identities in a positive light. Negative online experiences can include doomscrolling, going down rabbit holes or encountering disturbing or upsetting content. Especially recently, with so much hurtful or violent content going around, it’s okay to log off for a while.

These recommendations are not just for young people. Parents, educators, technology companies and policymakers all share responsibility for creating safer digital environments by teaching digital literacy, strengthening critical thinking skills and ensuring clearer protections around privacy.

As debates about online safety continue, it is tempting to focus only on risks and worst-case scenarios, or to feel like there’s nothing that can be done until more laws are on the books. But safer online experiences are built every day through fostering choice, balance, compassion and empowerment. On Safer Internet Day and every day, the most effective place to start is simple: Listen to young people and act on what they are saying.

Ethan Brignac, a transgender student at Wylie East High School, has been “Ethan” since seventh grade — to his friends, family and teachers. When he reached high school, his dad further validated his chosen name by requesting “Ethan” be used in school records, including in his email, class rosters and ID, which his teachers honored until this fall.

Three weeks after Brignac started his senior year, Wylie East administrators called him to the library and gave him a new ID. On it, in white capital letters, was a name he hadn’t been called in five years.

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“In the first week of school, when I was kind of trying to convince my teachers to call me Ethan, I was like, ‘Hey, look, it’s still on my ID,’” said Brignac, who did not want The Texas Tribune to publish his birth name because it causes him discomfort. “Then one of my teachers this year said, ‘Okay, they’re gonna fix that soon.’”

Now, he said, some teachers seem to wedge his legal name into every interaction, outing him to peers and resurrecting the dread he felt before school records reflected his chosen name.

“It was definitely a big change having my deadname kind of sprawled everywhere,” Brignac said, referring to a derogatory practice of calling a trans person by their birth name. “It was like, wow, okay, that wasn’t just a social media post I saw, this is real life.”

A Wylie spokesperson said the move was “to ensure full compliance with state law, including Senate Bill 12.”

A sweeping piece of legislation that went into effect Sept. 1, bars public school employees from socially transitioning a student, which it defines as helping to change a student’s sex assigned at birth by using a different name, pronoun or other practice that denies the birth sex. Dubbed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” the law allows guardians to report school-supported social transitioning to the school board, among other powers.

The law also prohibits K-12 faculty from referencing LGBTQ+ identities in class instruction and casual conversations, and it bans school-sanctioned clubs that center sexual orientation or gender identity.

Several transgender students at Texas schools that enforce birth names told the Tribune the new policies have transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. Considered a derogatory practice in the LGBTQ+ community, dead-naming undermines the wishes of trans people and in some cases, forcibly reveals their trans identity, which can cause or worsen mental health problems among these children, studies have found.

Some parents of trans Texas students say they are frustrated because the law appears to ignore their rights for those of other guardians. A few of these parents joined advocacy and teacher groups to file a lawsuit against SB 12 in August, seeking to pause districts from enforcing the law while the case proceeds.

Parents who support SB 12 say the law boosts their role in their children’s education. Many of them want to erase LGBTQ+ topics from K-12 schools, saying they prompt children to question their identities or that schools force progressive views onto their kids.

“We live in an insane world where a school board has to remind teachers that they cannot tell children, you know, suggest to kids they might be homosexual or they might be actually a girl if they’re a biological male,” said Jeffrey Keech, whose children go to Wylie schools. “It’s unbelievable to me that this even is an issue.”

The Tribune contacted two dozen districts across the state, including districts in the Austin, Houston and San Antonio areas, and spoke with a dozen teachers, parents and transgender students about how schools are implementing SB 12, finding that administrators are taking varied approaches. This is because the law leaves the Texas Education Agency and school districts to decide how to implement it, said Rachel Moran, a law professor at Texas A&M University who directs the education law program.

Some Texas school districts and boards, like Wylie, have adopted policies to ban teachers from aiding in social transitioning, but many have not yet — and are still allowing teachers to honor students’ preferred names and pronouns.

TEA would not respond to questions about how school districts are implementing SB 12, how many districts have complied with the law or deadlines for doing so.

Moran said schools might adopt hard-line policies to shield themselves from retribution.

“This is true with any broad mandate — some are going to be overcomplying,” she said. “It has a real chilling effect. They’re afraid to get anywhere close to a perceived line.”

Teachers told the Tribune the law leaves them anxious and confused because they are unsure when they can use nicknames or how they should respond to parents who request their children’s preferred names and pronouns be used. They lament that they won’t be able to support students who come out as queer. School district officials also worry how the policies will interfere with federal and district rules and daily affairs.

Now, Texas public school students sit in the crosshairs of debates over free speech, race, religion and gender and sexuality in school.

SB 12 is part of a slate of laws that increase oversight of K-12 schools, including new rules that mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms and clear the way for book bans. In federal and state governments and now school board meetings, disagreements have escalated from “I don’t think that you have the right idea,” to “I don’t think you’re the right kind of person,” Moran said.

Once a place to hear diverse perspectives, she worries schools will leave children unable to tolerate different views.

“The stakes are not just whether I win or lose this particular culture war,” Moran said. “It’s whether I preserve a tradition that has been so formative of our democracy.”

School policies vary

In addition to the ban on social transitioning, SB 12 prohibits hiring, training, programs and activities centered on race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation — referenced in the law as diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.

It also requires schools to tell parents their rights, such as allowing them access to school records and course content, and requiring that they give permission for their child to receive health care, hear lessons about sexuality and join clubs.

Among parts of the bill that confuse teachers and administrators is how to respond when parents ask that schools use their child’s preferred name and pronouns or what to call students who have already transitioned.

More than two months after the deadline to comply with SB 12, districts are implementing the bill differently.

Conner Carlow, a former registrar who now works as a classroom support specialist in the Leander school district, said faculty can continue to call students by their preferred name if that was done prior to SB 12 going into effect. However, faculty cannot use new names or new pronouns moving forward, and administrators must approve fresh changes on a case-by-case basis through a form parents submit. These updates are only allowed if they appear unrelated to social transitioning, he said.

The name change form is the only written directive Carlow has gotten regarding SB 12. Leander spokesperson Crestina Hardie would not say how the school district is handling name changes because the board has no policy about it. Hardie said the school district is waiting to enact new rules while it reviews the law and gets clarification from TEA and the district’s legal counsel.

“SB 12 deeply impacts personal and highly complex areas of school life, and the biggest challenge for districts statewide is the lack of clarity and consistency in how these laws intersect with existing Board policy, federal protections and day-to-day school operations,” Hardie said.

The and school districts adopted policies that ban DEI practices and prohibit social transitioning or providing information about it.

and school districts have posted parental rights resolutions, but nothing on social transitioning.

linked SB 12 on its website, but it is unclear how the district will implement the law, including gender-affirming names and pronouns.

Wylie distributed a advising employees to use the names and pronouns in school records and barring them from discussing race, color, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Although officials disagreed with parts of the law, Houston-based DRAW Academy rolled out the new rules. The 98% Hispanic charter district issued parental notices and consent forms, banned DEI and limited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, according to superintendent and CEO Patricia Beistegui.

“DRAW Academy stands for Diversity, Roots, and Wings, founded under the core belief that diversity and inclusivity is a strength in our democracy,” Beistegui said in an email. She said SB 12 is designed to make positive changes but actually revokes protections.

SB 12 and the way schools are implementing it forces teachers to blindly try to follow the law, said Charlotte Wilson, a Garland ISD special education teacher.

“It’s not clear to teachers what we can say or even do,” Wilson said, referencing instruction about race and LGBT topics. “Teachers are afraid because we don’t want to lose our certifications.”

Wilson wants a say in her children’s learning, but she thinks the law might lead teachers to skip lessons that touch on prohibited themes, undermining students’ quality of education.

“We already highlight different cultural historical events throughout the year, like MLK Day, Hispanic Heritage Month, women’s history,” Wilson said. “If we approach Pride Month the same way, as part of America’s inclusion, and communicate about what’s being taught, that shouldn’t violate anyone’s rights.”

Carlow said Leander’s bar on LGBTQ+ topics makes it hard to support his students. He remembers grappling with his sexuality as a middle schooler and how hard that was.

“I wasn’t telling my parents what was going on, so I imagine these kids aren’t either,” Carlow said. “The fact they’re willing to tell us before even the parents is a big deal, and now the fact that we have to just not accept them, I mean, it’s awful.”

“Called something I’m not”

The varied approaches to SB 12 means transgender students across Texas are experiencing different levels of alienation.

Pride flags fly and teachers use gender-affirming pronouns at Alief Early College High School, said Marshall Romero, a transgender third-year. The only change he noticed was a permission slip to join the speech and debate club.

An Alief spokesperson said the district also sent parents an opt-in and opt-out form for school health services.

Romero said the school remains largely supportive of LGTBQ+ students.

“I never had to worry about the teacher or any instructor telling me, like, ‘Hey, I can’t call you that, or I’m not going to call you that,’” Romero said. “Being able to be called by a name that reflects who I am, being called by certain pronouns, just really gives me a quality of life that I feel like I can hold on and is worth living.”

Cassie Hilborn, a Woodlands High School junior, yearns to be called her gender-affirming name at school. One of Hilborn’s earliest memories is looking in the mirror and wishing she was a girl. During the pandemic, she watched a YouTube video explaining what it meant to be transgender and finally understood why she felt misaligned with her body.

But the past year’s onslaught of transgender-focused federal and state policies stripped her confidence and dashed her plan to wear feminine clothes and ask her teachers to use her chosen name.

“It feels like every day I look at the news and then the headline just reads, ‘Sorry, more things you’ve lost,’” Hilborn said.

The Conroe school board, which governs Woodlands High School, was among the first in Texas to bar teachers from using gender-affirming names and pronouns.

At the school Dungeons & Dragons club, Hilborn’s peers and faculty adviser call her “Cassie,” but everyone else uses the legal name on her ID, which she hides under blue masking tape. She wants her classmates and teachers to know she’s transgender, but laws like SB 12 have discouraged her from coming out.

“Now, even teachers that might have respected my identity have been told that they unequivocally are not allowed to do so,” Hilborn said.

Once school records reflected Brignac’s preferred name, his grades climbed. He became president of the National Art Honor Society and founded an art mentorship program. He raised his hand so often that one teacher joked about it.

His stepmom Shannon Keene worries that being misgendered at school will thrust him back into isolation, like she saw before he entered high school.

This year’s reversal “made him feel rejected as a human being,” she said.

Having socially transitioned in seventh grade when he cut his hair and asked to go by Ethan, Brignac’s peers have been confused to hear his feminine name now used.

He’s reminded every day that his state and school deny his identity. “It’s rough being called something I’m not,” said Brignac, who now avoids talking in class.

Queer young people disproportionate rates of depression and mental illness. But a of 129 transgender and gender nonconforming students found that having their identities affirmed decreases symptoms of severe depression. Being called preferred names and pronouns is correlated with a drop in suicidal thoughts by 29% and suicidal behavior by 56%, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2018.

Refusing to use preferred names tells transgender and nonbinary students they’re unworthy of respect, said Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ equality.

“It’s as if someone else picked a nickname for you that you didn’t want, a malicious nickname, that they repeatedly use despite the fact they know what you prefer to be called,” Gooch said.

Parental rights for all?

Some parents who support expelling discussions about queer identities from schools say SB 12 protects children from viewpoints that might spur them to question who they are.

Around three years ago, after Kevin Brooks’ then-middle school daughter returned from school in the Wylie district and said her friend used nonbinary pronouns, he responded: “Sweetheart, don’t buy into that foolishness.”

The army veteran thinks children are too young to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and that it confuses them to hear that gender and sexuality are spectrums, like some schools have taught.

“Why are you teaching these kids that are as young as 5 and 6 years old all this stuff that they don’t need to deal with?” Brooks said. “I told my son the other day, I wish you’d stay innocent till you’re 35 years old, because the stuff that’s going on in the world right now absolutely just, it not only mortifies me, it terrifies me. It just really pisses me off.”

Brooks hasn’t heard of teachers at Wylie discussing LGBTQ+ identities, but he’s terrified to imagine them pledging allegiance to a rainbow flag, which happened in a California classroom in 2021.

In May, Don Zimmerman participated in a protest against a transgender teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in the Round Rock district, where he lives and previously ran for the school board.

Students and at least one faculty member stood across the street with posters saying, “Y’all means all.” To Zimmerman, the faculty member’s presence is proof of schools “coaching children and encouraging them to embrace and publicly protest in favor of this transgender extremism.”

“The school is so hell bent on this agenda of promoting transgenderism and the LGBT lifestyle, …and the parents feel so powerless at stopping the public schools agenda that they go to the Legislature and get these laws passed,” said Zimmerman, who sent his third grader to private school to shield him from LGBTQ+-themed lessons.

Parents of transgender students say new policies complying with the so-called “parents’ bill of rights” are a slap in their face. Keene, Brignac’s stepmom, said policies against using gender-affirming names and pronouns pander to conservative views and hurt gender-queer children, who are of youths ages 13-17 in the U.S.

Brignac’s biological mom told the Tribune she is now seeking to change her son’s legal name so he hears Ethan when he graduates.

“I fail to see the correlation between a parent asking that their child be called by their preferred name and pronouns and providing direct instruction on gender identity,” Keene said. “It’s about control, not about rights. And it’s also just blatant disregard for a person’s sense of self. And to do that to kids is unconscionable.”

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But while political activism is linked to positive mental health outcomes for most young people, the picture is more complex for LGBTQ teens and young adults. Two in five reported having at least one concern impacting their lives, prompting them to consider whether to move to a different state or cross state lines to obtain health care. 

“It’s a complex situation in that LGBTQ+ youth might feel more motivated to be engaged with political conversations or be civically engaged because they’re also more impacted by those anti-LGBTQ+ policies,” says Tiffany Eden, lead researcher on the report. “But at the same time, they’re also living with the repercussions.” 

The survey was administered between the fall of 2022 and fall 2023, before President Donald Trump’s inauguration and his immediate attempts to roll back LGBTQ rights, Eden notes. More recent data, including dramatic increases in the number of calls to suicide prevention hotlines, indicate politics’ negative impact on queer youth has likely spiked since then. 

Transgender and nonbinary youth were more likely to say they were motivated to take action than their cisgender peers: 63% versus 55%. Half of gender nonconforming youth reported having at least one LGBTQ-related political concern, compared to 35% of cisgender young people. 

These political concerns can lead to mental health challenges, the survey showed. About 70% of those with at least one LGBTQ-related political concern reported recent anxiety, versus. 63% of those without worries. More than half of those with concerns, 56%, reported recent depression, compared to 50% of those without.  

The problems were more significant for young people who said they were unable to meet their basic needs, with 52% harboring concerns compared to 43% whose needs are met.. Half of transgender and nonbinary young people had political concerns, versus 35% of cisgender peers.

Researchers also found geographic differences that frequently mirror the country’s political landscape, with 54% of those in the South saying they have concerns, vs. 47% in the Midwest, 37% in the West and 30% in the Northeast. 

Differences in young people’s ability to get their needs met shows up in the data regarding specific types of civic engagement. For example, the vast majority of LGBTQ 18- to 24-year-olds were registered to vote, but the proportion drops for those facing barriers. 

“That might be because they’re having more challenges or obstacles obtaining identification that aligns with their gender identity so that they can register to vote, and things like that,” says Eden. “That is probably one of the most important takeaways: That it looks different in LGBTQ+ youth in general, but even within that we see disparities and different groups that might need more support in order to be more engaged in the civic process.” 

Political engagement among those too young to vote was lower at 55%, compared to 64% of 18- to 24-year-olds. But even with more limited opportunities for engagement, the impact of recent policy changes is disproportionately felt by queer youth, says Eden. 

“When you think about anti-LGBTQ plus policies that would impact young people, they’re impacting kids that are actually in schools,” she says. “These are bills about using bathrooms that align with your gender identity and playing on sports teams — things like that.” 

Policies enabling in-school support are particularly important to LGBTQ youth. Slightly more than half say they are accepted by peers or teachers at school, compared with 40% who are supported at home.

The report is part of a series of analyses of longitudinal data Trevor compiles — which have taken on a more critical importance as some states ban or opt out of LGBTQ youth welfare data collections such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. 

At the same time, the number of young people affected has risen sharply in recent years. Estimates vary depending on how data is tabulated, but in a recent Gallup survey, almost 2 million — or 9.5% — of teens ages 13 to 17 now identify as something other than straight or cisgender. That’s nearly twice as many as in 2020. 

The number of bills aimed at rolling back or prohibiting in-school protections and health care access has tripled from 77 in 2020 to some 300 a year in 2023, 2024 and 2025, according to the Movement Advancement Project. 

The drumbeat of legislation, report the , has taken a steep toll on the mental health of the students in the crosshairs — regardless of where they live. When the dramatic escalation in legislation started in 2023, 90% of LGBTQ people ages 13 to 24 said politics had a negative impact on their well-being — up from 71% in 2022.  

Policies enabling in-school support are particularly important to LGBTQ youth. Slightly more than half say they are accepted by peers or teachers at school, compared with 40% who are supported at home. The presence of even one supportive educator in a child’s life has long been shown to reduce , anxiety and depression. 

The number of young people impacted has risen sharply in recent years, though estimates vary depending on how data is tabulated. According to a recent Gallup survey, almost 2 million — or 9.5% — of teens ages 13 to 17 now identify as something other than straight or cisgender. That’s nearly twice as many as in 2020. 

The project tracks state LGBTQ and elections policies using interactive maps featuring detailed information that is continually updated. For the new report, researchers states that enacted one or more of 16 types of laws commonly proposed in statehouses since 2020 — nine restrictive and seven protective — throughout the country. 

They then combined that information with demographic data and surveys of LGBTQ young people’s well-being from a number of advocacy organizations. The top takeaway: Whether a student attends a school where teachers are able to talk about LGBTQ history, enforce anti-harassment rules, maintain confidences about a child’s identity and allow gender-nonconforming youth to play sports depends on where they live. 

Nearly half of queer youth live in one of 27 states that have enacted one or more restrictions on their rights, ranging from bathroom bans to laws prohibiting schools from enacting anti-bullying policies. Thirty-eight percent live in the South, 24% in the West, 21% in the Midwest and 17% in the Northeast.  

Of the nine negative state laws the researchers looked at, seven involve schools. The other two are bans on medical care for transgender youth and laws exempting providers of child welfare services, such as foster care, from nondiscrimination rules on religious grounds. 

Tennessee has adopted eight, Arkansas, Montana and Idaho enacted seven each, and six other states imposed six or more new restrictions. Three-fourths of Southern states and two-thirds of the Midwest ban trans youth sports participation and medical care, while a third or fewer do in the West and Northeast.

While several states have adopted new, protective laws since 2020, MAP estimates that 6 in 10 LGBTQ youth live in places where there is no legal guarantee of support. 

In 2023, 2 in 5 LGBTQ young people and their families said they had considered moving because of politics in their home state. Just 4% actually had — but if that rate is an accurate reflection of all affected families, at least 266,000 people have likely relocated, the researchers estimate.

According to a survey released earlier this year by The Trevor Project, 25% of cisgender queer youth and their families and 45% of trans families to a state with more protective laws. Seven in 10 families with a transgender member living in states with restrictive laws have thought about relocating, while 12% have crossed state lines for medical care.     

Along with its state policy tally, the project released summarizing information gathered by half a dozen LGBTQ advocacy groups about the impact the recent political climate has had on queer young people. The data echoes the 2023 findings of a 74 investigation that found harassment, victimization and discrimination have spiked in blue states as well as red. 

Recent surveys by The Trevor Project and GLSEN, which advocate for protective school policies, found there is no state where fewer than 93% of LGBTQ students reported hearing slurs in school in 2023. Nationwide, 83% were harassed, 54% were sexually harassed and more than 12% assaulted. 

Research has long established that a hostile school climate translates to absenteeism, lower grade-point averages and graduation rates, and dramatically higher discipline rates, depression and stress — all of which can impact a student’s life trajectory. 

The number of young people impacted has swelled, a change the report attributes in part to generational shifts. While 3% of Baby Boomers and 5% of Gen X identify as LGBTQ, a 2025 Gallup survey found the rate is 14% among Millennials and 23% for Gen Z. 

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the number of high school students ages 13 to 17 who identify as LGBTQ rose from 11% in 2015 to 26% in 2023.  

Some of the sharp increase can be attributed to changes in how data is collected and categorized; to people realizing at younger ages they are not straight or cisgender; and to internet access to queer communities. But much of the rise can be attributed to the number of young people who identify as bisexual and/or nonbinary.

The number of transgender people of all ages, for example, has hovered around half a percent for the last decade, according to the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. Meanwhile, Gallup found 59% of LGBTQ people in Gen Z, defined as those born between 1997 and 2006, are bisexual, and 76% of nonbinary adults are under age 29.

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California’s schools and colleges receive billions in federal funding each year — money that President Donald Trump is threatening to terminate over the actions of one student. AB Hernandez, a junior from Jurupa Valley High School, is transgender, and on May 31 she won first- and second-place medals at the state track and field championship.

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“A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump said in last week. “As Governor Gavin Newscum (sic) fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!”

Despite this post and a similar threat a few days earlier to withhold from California, Trump lacks the authority to change the state’s policy toward transgender athletes without an act of Congress or a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. And recent court cases suggest that Trump also may have a hard time withholding money from California.

California state law explicitly allows transgender students in its K-12 school districts to compete on the team that matches their preferred gender, but the Trump administration has issued multiple directives that restrict access to girls’ sports, including last week from the U.S. Department of Justice telling high schools to change their policies.

On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta the Justice Department over its letter, saying it had “no right to make such a demand.”

“Let’s be clear: sending a letter does not change the law,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to school districts. “The DOJ’s letter to school districts does not announce any new federal law, and state law on this issue has remained unchanged since 2013.” On Monday, Thurmond sent his own letter to the Trump administration, .

California receives for its low-income Title I schools, as well as over $1 billion for special education. At the college level, students receive billions in federal financial aid and federal loans. Even if Trump lacks the legal authority to change state law, he could still try to withhold funding from California, just like he tried with Maine. In February, Trump asked Maine Gov. Janet Mills if her state was going to comply with — which is not a law — that directed schools to bar transgender girls from certain sports. Mills said she’d comply with “state and federal laws,” effectively .

The Trump administration has since tried to withhold funding from Maine, but have prevented it.

The NCAA vs. California state law

Trump made banning transgender youth athletes , and it’s remained a focal point for his administration this year. Nationally, Americans increasingly support restrictions on transgender athletes, according to from the Pew Research Center. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year signed legislation, spoke out against transgender athletes in a podcast this March, to allow transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports.

Female athletes with higher levels of testosterone or with masculine characteristics have long faced scrutiny, biological testing and disqualification. Debates about who gets to participate in girls’ or women’s sports predate the Trump administration — and Newsom — and policies vary depending on the athletic institution.

In 2004, the International Olympic Committee officially in the sport that aligned with their gender identity, as long as the athlete had sex reassignment surgery, only to change that policy in 2015 and require hormone testing. In 2021, the committee changed the policy again, creating more inclusive guidelines but giving local athletic federations the power to create their own eligibility criteria.

Across California, youth leagues, private sports leagues and other independent athletic associations all have their own policies. Some allow transgender women and men to participate; some restrict who can compete. Some require “confirmation” of a participant’s gender, such as a government ID or statements from health care professionals, while other associations take the athletes at their word.

California’s colleges and universities are to discriminate against transgender students but state law doesn’t provide any guidance beyond that. After the presidential executive order in February, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which independently regulates college sports, , prohibiting transgender women from competing and putting colleges in a bind. Roughly 60 California universities are part of the NCAA, including almost all of the UC and many Cal State campuses. Community colleges, which represent the bulk of the state’s undergraduates, are not part of the NCAA.

“There’s a strong argument (the NCAA rules) could violate state law and federal equal protection,” said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at UCLA’s , which studies LGBTQ+ issues.

Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for the California State University system, declined to comment about how the NCAA policy conflicts with state and federal regulations. She said the Cal State campuses abide by the NCAA rules — preventing transgender athletes from competing — while still following state and federal non-discrimination laws regarding trans students.

Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the University of California system, said the UC does not have a system-wide policy for transgender athletes. He did not respond to questions about whether the campuses abide by NCAA rules.

Unlike the NCAA, the California Community College Athletic Association allows transgender athletes to compete. A spokesperson for the association, Mike Robles, said he’s aware of the NCAA rules and the Trump administration’s priorities but he did not say whether the association will modify its own policy.

The U.S. Constitution is silent on trans students

In February, just days after the president’s inauguration and the executive order regarding transgender athletes, the U.S. Department of Education launched into San Jose State after a women’s volleyball player The education department has yet to provide an update on that investigation.

With the Trump administration’s focus now on CA K-12 school districts, the legal debate has intensified. In its letter to the state’s public schools last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports is “in violation” of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and asked schools to change their policies.

But the U.S. Constitution doesn’t say anything about transgender athletes, at least not explicitly.

Instead, Dhillon is offering an interpretation of the Constitution, “which doesn’t carry the full force of law,” Redfield said. The laws that do govern transgender athletes, such Title IX, aren’t clear about what schools should do, and the U.S. Supreme Court — the entity with the power to interpret federal law and the Constitution — has yet to decide on the matter.

That said, many lower level judges have already weighed in on whether the Constitution or Title IX law protects transgender students or athletes.“ are in favor of trans plaintiffs,” Redfield said. “The federal government is contradicting some pretty strong important precedent when they’re making these statements.”

After Trump’s comments about AB Hernandez, the nonprofit entity that regulates high school sports, the California Interscholastic Federation, changed its policy, slightly. For the state’s track and field championship, the federation said it would implement , whereby AB Hernandez would share her award with any “biological female” that she beat. All “biological female”  athletes below Hernandez would also move up in ranking.

On May 31, Hernandez shared the first-place podium twice and the second-place podium once, each time with her competitors smiling supportively, the San Francisco Chronicle .

A spokesperson for the governor, Izzy Gardon, said that approach is a “reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

The landscape for LGBTQ+ students in many states is becoming increasingly hostile. As of late February 2025, lawmakers in 48 states had introduced some seeking to roll back rights or legal protections for transgender people. Last year’s entire legislative session saw a total of 641 such measures, indicating an in bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

These proposed laws encompass a range of restrictions, including bans on participation by transgender students in sports teams that align with their gender identity; restrictions on gender-affirming medical treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors; measures that deny or complicate the legal recognition of transgender individuals’ gender identities; and policies that require schools to inform parents if a student identifies as LGBTQ+, potentially exposing young people to unsupportive or hostile environments at home.

The stakes are high. According to The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, LGBTQ+ youth in affirming schools reported significantly than those in non-affirming environments. A separate study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health demonstrated that the presence of gay-straight alliances in schools was associated with among both LGBTQ+ and heterosexual students.

Despite these clear benefits, the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation threatens to undermine the progress that has been made. These policies don’t merely restrict; they harm. LGBTQ+ youth already face disproportionate rates of bullying, mental health challenges and social isolation. Limiting affirming spaces and discussions only compounds these challenges, leaving vulnerable students with fewer resources and less hope.

Research is unequivocal about the importance of inclusive environments. Students in supportive schools have better academic outcomes, improved mental health and lower rates of substance abuse. A study by GLSEN found that LGBTQ+ students in schools with comprehensive policies feel , experience less victimization, and have a greater sense of belonging. have also that LGBTQ+ students in schools with anti-bullying policies that specifically mention sexual orientation or gender identity reported less homophobic victimization and greater psychosocial adjustment over time than students in schools without such policies.

Creating these inclusive environments isn’t just beneficial for LGBTQ+ students — it enriches the educational experience for all. It teaches empathy, broadens perspectives and prepares students for a diverse world. The skills learned in an inclusive environment — respect for differences, effective communication and conflict resolution — are invaluable in any future career or personal relationship. And schools that implement these measures report better outcomes for all students.

As the socio-political climate becomes increasingly charged, it’s vital for schools to stand as beacons of safety and acceptance. They must adopt and enforce inclusive policies, provide professional development for staff on LGBTQ+ issues and support gay-straight alliances and similar student organizations. Parents and community members can play a crucial role by advocating for these measures and holding schools accountable for their implementation.

This is a call to action: to ensure that every student, regardless of identity, feels seen, heard and valued. The time to act is now. Young people are owed safe spaces where they can thrive, free from fear and filled with the promise of a brighter, more inclusive future. This mission also intersects with broader struggles for equity and justice across other marginalized identities, including racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups. 

To create these inclusive spaces, especially in the face of such restrictive legislation, GLSEN offers these resources and recommendations:

• Implement comprehensive anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies that explicitly protect LGBTQ+ students.
  
• Provide professional development for staff on LGBTQ+ issues and creating inclusive classrooms.
  
• Support student-led clubs like gay-straight alliances.
  
• Include LGBTQ+ history and perspectives in the curriculum, where possible.
  
• Display visible signs of support, such as Safe Space stickers or posters.

School is where young people spend most of their waking hours. Students worrying about bullying or hiding their true self can’t fully engage in learning. That’s why focusing on academics alone overlooks the critical role that a sense of belonging and safety plays in a student’s ability to learn. But when students feel supported and accepted for who they are, their academic and personal development flourishes. 

How can educators and parents support this crucial cause? Start conversations in local communities about the importance of inclusivity by organizing public forums or joining school board meetings to advocate for inclusive policies. Collaborate with local organizations to raise awareness and foster dialogue on LGBTQ+ issues. Attend school board meetings and advocate for comprehensive policies. Support organizations like GLSEN, that provide resources and training. Seek out (demand!) professional development opportunities to better support your LGBTQ+ students.

The need for LGBTQ+ inclusive school environments is more urgent than ever. In the face of discriminatory legislation, schools can and must be a beacon of hope and acceptance. Creating these safe spaces not only improves outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth — it fosters a broader cultural and social understanding in schools, benefiting all students by cultivating empathy and mutual respect.

Organizations supporting LGBTQ students and their teachers in schools saw increases in both their workloads and donations after President Donald Trump’s first election and the recent avalanche of anti-LGBTQ bills moving through state legislatures. Since Trump’s second election, however, there has been a tectonic shift in the landscape. 

LGBTQ advocacy groups, including the top youth-serving organizations, say they have seen their funding decline. They fear this will accelerate even further in reaction to executive orders targeting “DEI” — diversity, equity and inclusion efforts — which may or may not be legal. 

Target, Google and Amazon are examples of corporate backers that have supported LGBTQ student advocacy but recently removed references to “DEI” from public documents or announced they are rolling back inclusion policies.

Meanwhile, needs are mushrooming. The Trevor Project saw a in the number of calls to its suicide-prevention hotline the day after the November election. Now, layoffs are likely as part of a restructuring intended in part to dedicate more resources to crisis intervention programs, . 

The Human Rights Campaign, which offers , is set to lay off about 20% of its employees. In a statement to the LGBTQ news outlet , the organization’s leaders said they hoped the “reset” would allow them to make schools a primary area of focus.

GLSEN, which provides a range of resources for schools working to be inclusive, has laid off 18 people. 

“In comparison to the outpouring of support for nonprofits in response to the first Trump administration, there is a significant difference here,” says Brian Dittmeier, GLSEN’s director of public policy. “We are dealing with a really targeted attack on the community. There are over 2 million LGBTQ students in the country, over 300,000 transgender students in tens of thousands of school districts that benefit from this support. There is a significant need there that will be unmet.”

Because until recently few government agencies collected data on queer youth, these three nonprofits have conducted much of the existing longitudinal research on LGBTQ students and used it to identify settings and policies that determine school safety for gender and sexual minority students and teachers. Among other things, they have established the positive academic impact of welcoming classrooms. 

The organizations also provide resources directly to students and educators. They must now figure out whether they can continue collecting and analyzing that data while focusing on direct services. 

“We were built to build the evidence base for interventions and policy changes, which could then be incorporated into a functioning civil rights regime and education system,” explains Eliza Byard, an education consultant and the former executive director of GLSEN. “At the same time, thanks to a change in culture and the work of many, many years by these organizations, the number of young people who are ‘out’ and seeking services, community and support has grown exponentially.”

As a result, she adds, “the job is enormous in a way that it wasn’t previously.” 

The Obama and Biden administrations began including information on LGBTQ students in numerous federal datasets — efforts targeted by Trump. This makes it especially important that longitudinal research by the advocacy organizations continue, says Dittmeier. 

He says he expects the organization’s 2024 school climate survey — a detailed, biennial report that’s the cornerstone of GLSEN’s research — to be released on schedule in the coming weeks and to be a priority going forward. 

“One of the pieces here is we know that the solutions — what works — is not going to come from Washington,” he says. “The solutions are going to come from communities. So as we have always done in our more than three decades’ history, we are going to continue to rely on what we’re hearing both in our larger-scale research projects but also in direct engagement with educators and students on the ground.”

Correction: Eliza Byard is an education consultant and the former executive director of GLSEN.

Clarification: After ����Ӱ�� published a reported number of layoffs at GLSEN, the organization emailed to clarify that the actual number is 18.

Disclosure: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies provide financial support to The Trevor Project and ����Ӱ��.

The and behaviors among teenage girls . Experts point to social media, cyberbullying and as potential new sources of stress for teenagers.

Students, educators and advocates gathered at a library in Meriden Tuesday to call on state and local leaders to expand protections for immigrant students, as well as those in the LGBTQ+ community, and to fully fund Connecticut’s public schools.

The call to action came just two weeks into Donald J. Trump’s second presidential term, during which he has signed a slew of executive orders that have revoked previous limits on at schools and other sensitive locations, for transgender youth and pledged to  for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

“We will not tolerate these unprecedented attacks on public schools, which are the foundation of our democracy, and we will not tolerate these attacks on our students, who are the leaders who will sustain our democracy in the future,” said Leslie Blatteau, the president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers.

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Speaking at a press conference at Meriden Public Library, Blatteau was joined by a half dozen other community advocates who are part of Connecticut For All, a statewide coalition that says its goal is to “reduce and eliminate systemic racial, economic, and gender inequities in Connecticut.” The group called for Gov. Ned Lamont and state lawmakers to commit to protecting students’ safety, providing support and ensuring “they’re able to succeed in their learning environment.”

One proposal put forth Tuesday was to strengthen the state’s , a 2013 law that limits state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We call on state leaders and community members to work together in ensuring that all students, regardless of their background, receive the education they deserve — that ICE does not rip their families apart, and that they honor sensitive locations,” said Tabitha Sookdeo, the executive director for Connecticut Students For A Dream.

“Education is a right. Safety is the right. Dignity is a right,” Sookdeo went on. “The classroom should be a place of learning and growth, not a place of fear and uncertainty. Ensuring protections and resources for these students allows them to focus on their education, just like any other kid, and contribute to their communities.”

Last week, state education officials on how local district leaders should respond to “immigration activities,” including in cases where federal immigration officers request student information or come onto school property.

The  addressed common questions the Education Department has received from school districts about changes in U.S. Homeland Security policy guidance, and it stressed that both state and federal law “protect a student’s right to attend public schools, regardless of their immigration status.”

Sookdeo said the memo was “good start,” but it fell “short of giving guidance to teachers if a school district does not put appropriate protocols into place.”

“What happens if a school allows an ICE officer to come in and take a student? What’s the protocol for that?” Sookdeo said.

Another growing concern is with students who identify as transgender or part of the LGBTQ+ community. One of Trump’s executive orders signed last Tuesday would, if enacted, withhold federal funding from institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, that provide gender-affirming care to youth under the age of 19. The directive also seeks to restrict coverage of those services from federally-run insurance programs, like Medicaid.

Connecticut Children’s CEO Jim Shmerling raised concerns about a cut to gender-affirming services last week, saying that he expects a “significant rise in suicide ideation and potential attempts in suicide.”

Advocates at the news conference echoed Shemerling’s concerns.

“We cannot expect a student to give 100% to their studies if they cannot be 100% of who they are,” said Tony Ferraiolo, of Healthcare Advocates International & Equality Now. “We are setting them up for failure when we take away a child’s ability to be seen,” Ferraiolo said. “What we’re telling them is that they don’t belong.”

Last year, Connecticut reaffirmed Title IX protections after the Biden administration issued new rules expanding protections for transgender students and a to block the rules. The Connecticut Department of Education directing Connecticut schools to recognize and respect a student’s preferences. Refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns or call the student by a particular name may “constitute gender-based discrimination” and be “deemed discriminatory under Title IX,” the guidance stated.

The state also defined gender dysphoria and said it could qualify students for specialized instruction. It allowed school boards to develop policies regarding what information may be shared with parents. And it permitted districts to provide single-sex bathrooms and access to facilities that correspond with a students’ gender identity, granting “equal opportunity” in participation of both curricular and extracurricular activities.

The Biden administration’s 2024 guidance was  by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights which stated it will only enforce Title IX provisions from 2020, which were written under Trump in his first presidency.

“No portion of the 2024 Title IX Rule is now in effect in any jurisdiction,” wrote Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights for the federal Department of Education. Trainor also wrote that under one of Trump’s recent executive orders, which called for the acknowledgment of just two genders, that the education department “must enforce Title IX consistent with President Trump’s Order.”

Trump has also threatened that federal funding could be rescinded “,” from schools that provide direct or indirect support toward the social transition of a transgender student.”

A spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Education said the agency planned to review its Guidance on Civil Rights Protections and Supports for Transgender or Gender-Diverse Students “to determine whether revisions are required in light of” the Trump administration’s reinstatement of 2020 regulations.

While the Trump administration has threatened funding cuts to K-12 schools, it has also reaffirmed its commitment to through federal funding. School choice — the ability to seek education outside of an assigned, traditional public school — has been a . Proponents say it gives families autonomy to find the education model that works best for their kids, and opponents say it takes funding away from traditional public schools, segregates children and privatizes education.

“Every single child deserves to go to a public school that prepares them for life beyond the classroom, no matter where they live or the economic conditions they face,” Chad Cardillo, a Meriden City Council member, high school teacher and union vice president, said at Tuesday’s event. “Make no mistake that providing taxpayer dollars to private entities under the guise of choice provides one true choice — that of those private entities to exclude students who do not fit their mold.”

Unlike other areas of the country, Connecticut has not seen a serious push to expand school choice through voucher programs, to send their children to private or religious schools. But the approval of charter schools .

Five charter schools received by the state Board of Education and must now go before the state legislature for a final step in the process before they can open their doors and begin enrolling students. At that meeting, Elizabeth Sked, a union member part of the Connecticut Education Association objected to the opening of the schools, saying they “result in inequity, diminished diversity and concentrations of students with the greatest resource needs,” and that the state should instead focus on “sufficiently funding its existing public schools before expanding a parallel system of charter schools.”

Similar sentiments were also shared Tuesday, as Blatteau said “new charter schools and proposed voucher programs undermine the tenets of true public education.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

More than 1 in 4 queer 13- to 17-year-olds attend school in the seven states that now mandate this inclusive instruction, versus 20% who live in the 20 states that have passed what advocates call Don’t Say Gay laws. 

Research shows schools are safest for LGBTQ children and educators, and that students learn best, when they see themselves in classroom materials. They are far less likely to hear homophobic and transphobic slurs, to feel unsafe because of their identity or gender expression, to miss school or to be victimized. They attend school more consistently, get better grades and are more likely to say they have multiple teachers who are supportive. 

The presence of clubs known as gay-straight alliances improves school climates for all students — especially those from marginalized backgrounds. And straight, cisgender educators report feeling more confident in their ability to meet students’ needs when they themselves learn about LGBTQ people and topics. 

But the question of whether laws requiring accurate and positive portrayals of LGBTQ people, history and events make schools more welcoming is a complicated one. The first state to adopt a mandate, California, has seen only incremental change after 15 years. Other states that more recently began requiring inclusive instruction — most notably Illinois and Oregon — took note, wrote stronger laws and have seen more rapid progress. 

Policymakers and advocates are amassing pinpointing practical reasons why the mandates succeed or fail. Perhaps a law didn’t include funding for new resources, set deadlines or require state officials to follow up to make sure schools complied. Maybe it gave few specifics about which changes to textbooks would fulfill the requirements and even less guidance to help  educators and the public understand why they are important for LGBTQ students’ well-being and academic success. Or it could be that districts found it easier to comply with policies that identified or created free, optional materials, called for training teachers and principals on their use and on incorporating students’ feedback, and issued step-by-step guidance on implementation.      

Whatever the factors involved, the fact is that during the last two decades, the number of LGBTQ students who say they are exposed to inclusive instruction has dropped nationwide, from 20% to 16%. Nearly 15% say they are taught negative depictions. And though it’s early in the implementation process in some places, the number of students who say their classes included positive lessons in the seven states that mandate them ranges from 15% to 32%, with an average of 22.5%. 

Even in communities where educators are eager to make the called-for changes, school board meetings have become contentious, as organized groups charge that allowing discussion of LGBTQ topics leads to the “grooming” of students to become gay or trans. 

The resulting fear and confusion are frequently more powerful than the letter of the law. And administrators and even district attorneys often lack clarity on what the law is, including in places with strong protections for LGBTQ kids and educators.

It’s a tough political reality that is about to get even harsher. 

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to withhold funding from “, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”

Well-tested legal limits on federal involvement in what schools teach may make it difficult for Trump to starve schools that teach “woke” concepts. But the of demonstrates that in practice, he may well get his way.

A culture of fear and intimidation

“There is a lot of talk happening now about clamping down on inclusive learning coming from the incoming administration,” says Brian Dittmeier, policy director of GLSEN, which has been monitoring school climate for LGBTQ students for 25 years. “I just want to make clear that there’s a long bipartisan record, and requirements from Congress, that the U.S. Department of Education not dictate curriculum to the states.”

But classroom materials are just one element of what makes a school welcoming, he adds. School leaders need to take a number of steps to build trust with marginalized students — which can be hard to do in the face of ideological assaults. 

“You can adopt policies, you can put books on the library shelves,” says Dittmeier, “but if there is a culture of fear and intimidation, and there’s not the follow-through of inclusion, it’s going to impact the success of those interventions when it comes to reducing adverse mental health outcomes and diminished academic performance.” 

U.S. education policy has long put local leaders in charge of many decisions, so long as school systems meet thresholds set by state and federal officials. So while states create curricular standards — guidelines spelling out what students are expected to learn in each grade and subject — for the most part, district leaders can decide how to include those required topics in classroom lessons.  

Because of this, there are countless places where things can fall apart between a governor signing a bill into law and a teacher feeling safe enough to mention, for example, that astronaut Sally Ride was a lesbian or that Pride Month recognizes the revolt at the Stonewall Inn.  

It’s long been understood that all children when they in classroom materials. One popular theory describes curricula featuring people of different races, abilities and backgrounds as providing “” — a mirror so a child feels connected to the material and a window for learning about other cultures. 

In the case of LGBTQ students, inclusive curriculum — instruction that includes the societal contributions of queer people — also makes schools safer. According to GLSEN, which advocates for policies making schools more welcoming, 4 in 5 queer youth ages 13 to 17 feel unsafe in school, making a third uncomfortable enough to miss at least one day a month. 

Last year, GLSEN analyzed comparing the experiences of LGBTQ students in schools that use inclusive curriculum and those that don’t. Researchers found dramatic differences in student mental health and academic engagement, as well as overall school climate. The positive impacts are also felt by LGBTQ students of color and gender-nonconforming students, who typically report the highest levels of victimization.   

Compared with students in schools that don’t use inclusive curriculum, they are far less likely to routinely hear homophobic and transphobic remarks. Less than half (49%) hear the word “gay” used in a negative way, compared with almost three-fourths (72%) in schools that don’t use inclusive curriculum. One in 4 (27%) hear slurs such as “fag” or “dyke,” compared with almost half (48%). 

LGBTQ students in schools that use inclusive curriculum are almost twice as likely (67% vs. 35%) to say their classmates are accepting. They are dramatically less likely to feel unsafe, half as likely to be victimized in person and less likely to miss school. Consistent attendance is particularly important in light of past GLSEN surveys that put the LGBTQ dropout rate at 35% — three times the national average.  

California’s glacial pace

Armed with early versions of this research and with stories of being bullied, in 2006 some 500 students, accompanied by friends and families, descended on the California statehouse to demand passage of a law that would require schools to use “bias-free” curriculum. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ultimately vetoed the initial bill. 

In 2011, the state Assembly passed the law, the first in the country requiring schools to include the contributions of LGBTQ people in their instruction. As he signed the FAIR Education Act, which also called on educators to teach about people with disabilities, then-Gov. Jerry Brown said he expected it to for textbooks and other materials reflecting the mandated changes to reach classrooms. 

In fact, that estimate was . Notably, the law did not include a deadline for compliance, a mechanism for monitoring implementation or consequences if schools did not shift instruction. Fifteen years after its passage, it remains unimplemented in most of the state’s nearly 1,000 school systems.

A by the advocacy group Equality California found that of districts had adopted all the required changes, though 60% had taken at least one step toward compliance. In 2021, just 27% of California LGBTQ students aged 13 to 17 told GLSEN they had been exposed to positive representations of LGBTQ people in class, an increase of only 5 points since the law’s passage.

To be fair, implementation of curricular standards is never quick. Once a law calling for change is passed, state officials typically appoint a group of educators and subject-matter experts to decide which facts or skills should be taught in each grade. The potential revision is then shared with the public for feedback. 

In the case of the FAIR Act, California’s updated history and social studies standards were , six years after the law’s passage. In deference to local control, districts were left to decide what materials to use.    

But determining whether a textbook meets standards is painstaking work that exceeds the capacity of many districts. And materials are scarce.    

For example, a 2018 of the 3,000 children’s books published the previous year found that half of characters were white, 27% were animals, 10% Black, 7% Asian or Pacific Islander, 5% Latino and 1% Native American. 

Last year, The Education Trust that are part of five curricula that received favorable ratings from EdReports, an organization that evaluates classroom materials for quality. Less than 40% of the texts reviewed featured people of color. In most of those that did, reviewers found “limited representation, such as through stereotypes or as background to the stories of others.” 

When the FAIR Act was passed in 2011, suitable resources were even harder to find. The books Education Trust reviewed included two gay men and six individuals with disabilities, for example. The law required state officials to screen and approve textbooks that districts could voluntarily adopt.

State academic standards vary widely and are often met with political opposition, making the process of approving materials contentious. Publishers are under pressure to customize materials to meet each state’s parameters. Because of their size and tendency to adopt standards at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, California, with 6.7 million K-12 students, and Texas, with 5.8 million, have outsized influence on what publishers produce. 

A January 2020 New York Times piece printed for both markets, finding discordant recountings of the history of capitalism, Reconstruction, immigration, white flight and what one Texas volume called the “Americanization” of Native Americans. A month later, a found seven states did not directly mention slavery in their standards, and 16 listed states’ rights as the cause of the Civil War.      

In California, advocates and members of the state commission reviewing classroom resources scrapped over how to identify historical figures such as Emily Dickinson, James Buchanan and Ralph Waldo Emerson; how to characterize people who were not out when they were alive; and whether to include context regarding sexual orientation or gender identity in texts given to students, or only in teachers’ guides. 

At one point, for example, McGraw-Hill pushed back against the commission’s request to describe Ellen DeGeneres as “a lesbian and humanitarian,” suggesting the materials instead say DeGeneres “works hard to help people. She and her wife want all citizens to be treated fairly and equally,” the news site EdSource. 

Ultimately, the state rejected two sets of materials from one commercial publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and accepted 10. Examples of age-appropriate lessons the state advisory board approved include a section titled “Different Kinds of Families” in a second-grade book, an entry on the legal recognition of same-sex marriage for fourth-graders and a on homosexual life under Nazi rule.    

In 2018, appropriate curricula were ready for classroom use. A year later, the number of California LGBTQ students ages 13 to 17 surveyed by GLSEN who said they were exposed to positive representations of queer people had risen from 22% to 33%. 

But the next time GLSEN administered its school climate survey, in 2021, the culture wars were in full swing and the rate had fallen to 27%. Last fall, an Equality California found that fewer than one-third of schools had fully implemented the law’s requirements. 

Illinois, Oregon learn from California’s missteps

In 2019, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois and Oregon adopted inclusive curricular standards. Nevada would follow in 2021, and Washington state in 2024. Like California’s, the new laws require instruction about other rarely discussed groups as well, such as Native Americans and people with disabilities. During the same time period, three other states — Vermont, Connecticut and Delaware — passed legislation requiring state officials to create model curricula and updated standards.

The new policies vary in approach, with several states taking steps to avoid problems that dogged implementation in California. Colorado lawmakers, for example, set aside money to pay for textbooks. A number of districts, including Denver Public Schools, did not wait for the state review process and instead turned to Teaching Tolerance, the Human Rights Campaign and other outside groups for . 

In Illinois, officials appointed an advisory council composed of advocates, academic subject-matter experts and health officials to come up with curricula and . Like California’s, the law leaves the question of whether to adopt the materials up to local officials, but it mandates checks on whether the instruction is being provided as part of a process of monitoring whether districts are following a number of state requirements. So far, no Illinois district has been found to be out of compliance, according to the state Board of Education. 

Mollie McQuillan is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the implementation of LGBTQ school policies. Illinois has a lot of work left to do, says McQuillan, who uses they/them pronouns. “But they’ve filled some of these holes that we see in other states.” 

The same committee of advocates and experts that screened classroom materials, the Illinois Inclusive Curriculum Advisory Council, also wrote the guidance for how school systems could meet the new standards. Essentially a how-to manual, explains why inclusion is important, how to determine whether a lesson is age-appropriate and how to gain teacher buy-in. For example, it suggests back-to-school night is a good time to let parents know about the new law and its goal of a safe and supportive school climate, and to encourage families to ask questions.      

If inclusive standards requirements are not accompanied by anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies — and similarly specific instructions for implementation — confusion can arise. Faced with uncertainty, McQuillan says, local leaders often default to the status quo.                  

Few principal and superintendent licensure preparation programs include training on sexual orientation or gender, they say. Because of this, school leaders may not be aware of their students’ needs, much less have a sense of urgency about meeting them. 

Far from having considered how transgender and nonbinary students may experience school, administrators and district leaders often don’t realize how strong traditional gender norms can be. They may never have questioned how their schools’ physical spaces and activities are organized. 

A member of the advisory council that has guided the implementation of the Illinois law, Julio Flores trains educators, school administrators and families on LGBTQ topics. Demand, he says, has been strong — and often, the information sought is much more basic than how to frame a lesson.

In his workshops, the mere mention of new curricular standards often triggers a much broader conversation among teachers and school leaders who, depending on the demographics of their communities, might have questions ranging from what constitutes respectful speech to how to make their classrooms safe. One of the topics most frequently raised is the difference between sexual orientation and gender.  

“One common question is, ‘How do young people know that their gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth?’ ” he says. “ ‘How can I support young people, especially if their parents are not supportive?’ That’s a huge challenge for adults, wanting to support their young people but also recognizing parents also have their own process.”

Data on how quickly school climates shift after an inclusive curriculum mandate is adopted are scant. In the four states that passed requirements in 2019, implementation was sometimes held up as school leaders scrambled to figure out how to respond to COVID-19, and the most recent school climate research from GLSEN — the most detailed data available — was published in 2021. (A new dataset is expected later this year.) 

But there are early suggestions that enacting several LGBTQ student protection policies at the same time — and being explicit about how they are to be enacted — can be effective. The second state to pass a curriculum law was New Jersey, which requires the teaching of accurate representations of queer and disabled people but leaves it to individual school boards to decide what inclusive means. Compared with 2011, the state saw a 3 percentage point drop in the number of students who said they were exposed to positive representations. 

By contrast, Oregon, where standards will not be mandatory until the 2026-27 school year, saw a 9-point gain. In its recent analysis, GLSEN noted that the degree of specificity and the  comprehensive nature of the state’s directions to school systems are likely key reasons why. In addition to the kinds of advice included in Illinois’ guidance, Oregon’s encompasses other steps educators should take to make schools more welcoming. For example, after explaining that fostering trust between students and administrators is crucial, directs school leaders to create a process for youth and staff to report incidences of bias and to spell out what steps will be taken.  

Based on the data the organization has gathered over the last 25 years, GLSEN researchers say that to make the most difference in student welfare, inclusive curriculum should be — both and in on-the-job professional development — by the adoption of non-discrimination and anti-bullying laws and by the creation of forums where LGBTQ youth can express their needs. 

According to GLSEN’s Dittmeier, six states now require that teachers be trained on LGBTQ inclusion, and seven have developed materials for educator professional development.

“All of these supports are really key to ensuring that LGBTQ youth feel included in their school environment and can obtain the success of their peers,” says Dittmeier. “When these interventions are available in the school, it really results in a dramatically different school experience for LGBTQ youth.”

But other research has documented an increase in ambivalence about inclusive instruction among teachers. A 2022 survey administered by Educators for Excellence found that 1 in 3 do not support including LGBTQ topics in instruction, while 11% believe their school does not enroll any queer children at all. 

Support for inclusive instruction was weakest among older educators and white ones, with 82% of teachers under age 50 expressing support and 97% of Black, Latino and Indigenous educators saying they are in favor. Educators also told the researchers they fear the wave of state legislation curtailing classroom speech and are unsure what they can say. 

Over the last two years, Oregon has trained 1,000 educators and staff at universities and nonprofits that work with schools to implement the new standards. The state has awarded grants to organizations to provide professional development, instructional materials, affirming drop-in spaces for homework help and youth summits, and it requires districts to have formal community engagement processes.

Uniquely, Oregon also recognized that discussions of LGBTQ school inclusion typically focus on bullying, suicidality and other negative experiences. So officials asked students where they feel most accepted and has helped community groups create opportunities — many of them tailored to young people of a particular race or ethnicity — for queer youth to have fun and spend time with affirming adults.   

School board pushback — and a lawsuit

In May 2023, a newly elected conservative school board majority in California’s Temecula Valley Unified School District overruled a group of teachers who had selected new, state-adopted social studies textbooks for grades 1-5. The reviewers had solicited feedback from parents, which was overwhelmingly positive or neutral.  

The three new board members — who earlier banned instruction on critical race theory, which is not taught in K-12 schools — said they opposed the curriculum because they did not want students to learn about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. 

A tug of war with state officials ensued. The state Department of Education and California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched investigations, and Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened consequences. But the FAIR Act did not set deadlines for schools to shift their instruction, require state officials to monitor implementation or spell out what would happen in districts that ignored the mandate.

In July, the Temecula Valley board doubled down, again the curriculum. Within a day, the governor said he planned to order the books and send the district the $1.6 million bill. Newsom also said that if the Assembly passed a bill that would create consequences for flaunting the FAIR Act and other laws requiring inclusive instruction, he would fine the district $1.5 million.      

The second law would, in fact, , but not until two months after the Temecula Valley board backed down and agreed to adopt most of the curriculum. A few days later, the district’s teachers union, a group of educators and parents sued the board, charging that its votes rejecting instruction required by state standards and a variety of other edicts involving race, sexuality and gender . The case is wending its way through courts.         

‘Anti-LGBTQ animus is still socially acceptable’ 

Even if federal law continues to curtail Trump’s ability to force the elimination of inclusive curriculum, the culture wars may ultimately stymie implementation in many places. 

A survey released last spring by University of Southern California researchers Anna Saavedra and Morgan Polikoff found deep partisan divides in which topics Americans feel are appropriate for classroom discussions, with the biggest gulf on LGBTQ subjects. 

Unlike many polls, the survey asked about hypothetical scenarios in which students’ ages and the content of possible lessons varied from exposing elementary-aged children to stories with a variety of kinds of families to topics that include sex.   

Depending on the scenario, 4 in 5 Democrats said they support inclusive instruction in high school and half or fewer in lower grades. Republicans, by contrast, were comfortable with LGBTQ topics less than 40% of the time at the high school level and less than 10% in elementary school.     

Blue state government notwithstanding, Polikoff wrote in , California has the same partisan divides on inclusive curriculum as other places. The political right, he noted, had “fixed its gaze” on LGBTQ issues in schools.   

“The reason for this shift is obvious: Anti-LGBTQ animus is still socially acceptable,” Polikoff wrote. “The reality is that LGBTQ issues in schools are a thorny problem, and .”
The range of responses, he told ����Ӱ��, does suggest a path forward, albeit a long one: “We really do need to have a discussion about what’s age-appropriate, what parents want and kids need. And that’s probably not going to be one conversation. That’s probably going to be 50 conversations, one in each state. Or maybe 13,000 conversations, one in each district.”

The orders also call for using federal funding to revive an advisory commission Trump created in 2020 to promote patriotic instruction, and for restricting trans and gender-nonconforming students’ participation in sports and use of bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Education is to emphasize school choice — described as universal K-12 scholarship programs — in making discretionary grants and to issue guidance to states about their use of federal funds. The secretaries of the Defense and Interior departments are to create plans to allow military families and those with children in Bureau of Indian Education schools to use federal funds to send their children to the schools of their choosing. And the Department of Health and Human Services is to issue guidance on how states that receive block grants for child care and other services for families and children can use those funds at private and religious institutions. 

Teachers unions were quick to call the school choice order an effort to illegally funnel federal dollars to private schools. “President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “When voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected — time and again — at the ballot box.”

But Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, says the main thing the order regarding private school choice does is signal what the Education Department will emphasize when considering grant applications and in telling states how they may use their federal allotments.

“What will matter a lot is not the general direction of the EO, but the particulars of how the departments start to put this stuff into practice,” he explains. “What we’ll see is how much they think there’s room to reinterpret the existing rules, and how much this is an effort to offer explicitly different guidance.” 

The executive orders were among in the 10 days since Trump’s second swearing-in. have created confusion and sparked legal challenges as states and interest groups charge that the president is overstepping his authority to mandate changes to laws and programs.  

On Monday, Trump ordered a freeze on federal spending, only to rescind it two days later after a federal judge ordered a temporary pause on it going into effect. A White House spokeswoman then said the freeze had not been rescinded, only the memo ordering it. An executive order ending birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Constitution, also was met by a court challenge. Broad confusion about orders for federal employees to return to in-person work and dominated headlines. 

The order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” calls for withholding funds from schools that teach “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology” and for legal action against teachers who “sexually exploit minors,” “practice medicine without a license” or otherwise facilitate the “social transition” of a student. 

By law, federal officials cannot dictate what is taught in U.S. schools — a prohibition Republicans have long supported and that stymied Trump’s efforts in 2020 to mandate the use of a “patriotic” 1776 curriculum. And while the current U.S. Supreme Court majority appears poised to uphold bans on gender-affirming care for minors, right now transgender and nonbinary students are legally entitled to use the restroom of their choosing.      

Citing the complexity of the federal government’s relationship to the nation’s 131,000 public schools, education advocates counseled patience. 

“The education community has developed a habit of going from 1 to 11 on everything Trump does instantaneously,” says Hess. “Getting more clarity before getting overly excited or overly critical is probably going to make for a more useful debate.”

Regarding the school choice order, he adds, “I think most of what’s here is probably sensible and reasonable and wholly consistent with what one would have expected.”

As with many of Trump’s executive orders, it’s unclear what the practical implications of the new mandates will be. Federal education dollars represent a small proportion — about 11% in 2021 — of . The lion’s share is sent to states to help pay for services for children with disabilities and those living in poverty. A host of rules govern how the rest is spent. 

President of the education policy organization 50CAN, Derrell Bradford anticipates that allowing military families to use their federal education funds to enroll their children in the schools of their choice will be well received. Schools operated by the Department of Defense are routinely among the highest-performing in the country, but servicemembers move frequently, and many dislike switching schools.

Bradford also says the order likely will make it easier to access the main federal program for funding new public charter schools and expanding successful ones. The Biden administration, he says, slowed grantmaking.   

It’s unclear, Bradford and Hess say, whether there are enough private school alternatives to schools run by the Defense Department — particularly overseas — and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to make vouchers meaningful for those students.   

There are significant differences between Trump’s capacity to move quickly following his second inauguration and his first, Hess notes. In 2017, private school choice had a passionate champion in then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, but fewer institutional advocates lined up to create and administer vouchers and education savings account programs. The rapid adoption of states’ private school choice programs in recent years has changed that, he says. 

Because Trump’s first election was a surprise to many, it was hard for the administration to staff its Education Department, Bradford adds: “This time, it seems like there is a larger number of people who know how government works and have an idea how to advance their goals.”

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an appeal from a group of Montgomery County parents challenging a school system policy that does not let them opt their lower elementary school children out of classes that use LGBTQ+ books.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, co-leader of a six-state coalition, declared victory Thursday in challenging the federal Department of Education’s overhaul of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act, which he argued would harm West Virginia students, families and schools.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky granted summary judgment in favor of the coalition — the court denied the Education Department’s cross-motion for summary judgment.

“This is a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for common sense and the safety of every student,” Morrisey said. “The Biden administration’s Title IX revisions would have ended sex-based protections for biological women in all aspects of education, and this would have marked a retreat from the progress women have made.”

If DOE’s unauthorized rewrite of Title IX would have been allowed to stand, West Virginia schools could have been compelled to allow males self-identifying as female — in every grade from preschool through college — to use girls’ and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, and access other female-only activities and spaces or risk losing billions in federal funding.

Indiana, Ohio and Virginia joined the West Virginia-, Kentucky-, and Tennessee-led lawsuit. The coalition filed the lawsuit in April 2024.

For 50 years, Title IX has helped equalize women’s access to educational facilities and programs by barring discrimination based on sex by federally funded schools, Morrisey said. At the same time, because of the enduring physical differences between men and women, Title IX has always allowed the sex-segregated spaces — like bathrooms and locker rooms — that are ubiquitous across the nation, Morrisey said.

This story was orginally published by WVNews

A federal district court judge in Kentucky has struck down President Joe Biden’s effort to protect transgender students and make other changes to Title IX, ruling the U.S. Department of Education violated teachers’ rights by requiring them to use transgender students’ names and pronouns.

The ruling issued Thursday, which applies nationwide, came as a major blow to the Biden administration in its final days and to LGBTQ+ advocates. It comes less than two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, when the rule was likely to face more scrutiny from a candidate who took aim at transgender people in a culture-war focused campaign.

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The Biden and aimed to protect LGBTQ+ students in K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The rule also conferred protections for pregnant students. The update to Title IX, the federal law that forbids sex-based discrimination in education, was expanded to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

In his , Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky wrote in his opinion that the education department could not expand Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Reeves was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

Gender identity refers to the gender that an individual identifies as, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.

“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” Reeves wrote.

Louisiana was among the states that sued the Biden administration over the rule. Its case at the time of the ruling in Kentucky, which came in the case Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti brought.

“Louisiana is honored to have litigated this issue alongside Tennessee and our sister States,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement to the Illuminator. “This is a great day for America!”

Gov. Jeff Landry also praised the decision in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX is dead!,” Landry posted from his personal account. “It’s a shame this even had to go to court, but pleased to see this win for women and girls across our Nation.”

Prior to Thursday’s decision, the rule had been temporarily blocked in nearly half of U.S. states, including Louisiana and Tennessee, as litigation played out.

While Reeves’ opinion references a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits the regulatory authority of federal agencies, it also notably rejects the rule on First Amendment grounds.

“The First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees in this manner,” Reeves said, referring to sections of the law that could be interpreted as defining deadnaming and misgendering of students as harassment.

Deadnaming is when someone uses a transgender or nonbinary person’s birth name or “dead name” against their wishes. Misgendering occurs when someone refers to an individual by a gender they do not identify as.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

From gun-toting math teachers to federal rules that decide which bathroom a kid can use, the student safety and civil rights issues that are central to the School (in)Security newsletter could be in for some major changes. 

Here are 11:

• The return of an architect of the family separation immigration policy during the first Trump administration. | 
  
• An effort to end the constitutional right of citizenship for children born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ immigration or citizenship status. | 
  
• A rollback of civil rights and anti-discrimination protections for transgender students. | 
  
• A shakeup at the federal government’s primary cybersecurity agency, which has taken a leading role in school cyberattack prevention. | 
  
• Efforts to unwind bipartisan firearm restrictions approved in 2022 following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. | 
  
• Policies that address school violence through a renewed focus on suspensions and “hardening schools” with measures like campus-based police and metal detectors. |  
  
• Efforts to strengthen protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. | 
  
• A promise to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education — and the potential return of policies enacted during the first Trump administration that scaled back investigations into discrimination based on students’ race, sex or religion. | 
  
• A vice president who said school shootings — which have surged exponentially in the last decade — are a “fact of life” and that schools are “soft targets” if you are a “psycho and you want to make headlines.” | 
  
• Efforts to reform anti-discrimination rules to remove “disparate impact” liability, including for racial disparities in school discipline. | 
  
• Efforts to eliminate federal funds for schools that recognize students’ transgender identities and grant equal access to bathrooms and locker rooms. | 

In the news

To school shooting survivor David Hogg, Democrats’ failure to motivate voters rests on the shoulders of one constituency above all: Boomers. I recently profiled , a well-financed political action committee designed to elevate Gen Z and millennial progressives. Here’s how they fared on Nov. 5. | 

Notorious swatter confesses: An 18-year-old from California has pleaded guilty to making 375 swatting calls throughout the U.S., including false police reports of school shootings and bombings. | 

Federal authorities indicted two suspected cybercriminals accused of breaking into a cloud computing platform and exposing the data of major corporations and the Los Angeles school district. | 

A federal judge has temporarily halted a new Louisiana law that would require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. | 

A drop in the bucket: The Federal Communications Commission said demand for a $200 million school cybersecurity pilot program far exceeded its capacity, with 2,734 applications requesting a total of $3.7 billion. | 

The Providence, Rhode Island, school district acknowledged in a letter to families that a recent cyberattack compromised sensitive student information — but only after I published  into the extent of the breach. | 

‘A culture of bullying:’ Federal authorities have opened a civil rights investigation into a New Jersey school district where school resource officers are accused of failing to protect an 11-year-old student from harassment before she died by suicide last year. | 

The 28-year-old athletics director of a New York school district has been arrested in an extortion case, accused of demanding that a 17-year-old student send him sexual photos over Snapchat under a threat of exposing personal information about the minor. 

ICYMI @The74

Emotional Support

George, the four-legged companion of education consultant David Irwin, found the perfect lobster costume for Halloween a decade ago and hasn’t looked back.

In 2023, 72% of transgender students and 69% of those questioning report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 1 in 4 attempted suicide. By comparison, 11% of cisgender girls and 5% of cisgender boys reported a suicide attempt. Ten percent of trans youth received medical treatment after trying to take their own life. 

Last year marked the first time data on high school students’ gender identity was collected as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Administered every other year to some 20,000 ninth- through 12^th-graders, the survey has long been considered the most accurate depiction of the well-being of LGBTQ youth. 

This most recent survey is also the first to collect data on student welfare since dozens of laws in almost half of U.S. states have rolled back protections for LGBTQ youth and limited transgender people’s access to health care. A released in September by The Trevor Project found the rate of suicide attempts rose by up to 72% in places that enacted the laws between 2018 and 2022. 

“The figures reported by the CDC are harrowing and indicate that much remains to be done to support transgender young people’s health and safety in the U.S., especially as we’re witnessing another record-breaking year of anti-transgender legislation,” says Ronita Nath, Trevor’s vice president of research. 

The federal data adds to research showing that LGBTQ students aren’t safe at school. Compared with 8.5% of cisgender male students, more than 1 in 4 gender-nonconforming youth reported skipping school within the last month out of fear, and 40% said they were bullied. More than 10% of transgender and questioning students lacked stable housing, a rate five times higher than that of their cisgender peers. 

“These data confirm what we have long known to be true: Transgender young people are disproportionately impacted by a number of health disparities,” says Nath. “It’s crucial to clarify that these young people are not inherently prone to these negative mental health outcomes, but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized by others.”

According to the Movement Advancement Project, 53% of all LGBTQ people now live in states where there are no legal protections for queer students. Another 2% live in places where new laws prohibit local governments, including school districts, from enacting anti-discrimination policies. States with anti-bullying laws are home to 45% of the LGBTQ population.

Data about trans youth is scarce, but the statistics that are available underscore higher rates of poor mental health, suicidality, in-school victimization and other struggles. The number of youth who identify as gender-nonconforming or questioning in the new CDC data is much higher than past estimates. Extrapolating from 2017 and 2019 Youth Risk Behavior statistics drawn from a smaller number of states, in 2022 the Williams Institute, a UCLA-based LGBTQ research center, suggested 1.4% of teens are transgender. 

It is known that a higher number of youth now identify as LGBTQ in general than previous generations. But researchers caution that at least one more CDC survey cycle is needed to draw conclusions about whether teens are now more likely to say their gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. 

In 2022, President Joe Biden  geared at expanding LGBTQ data collection by the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies. At the same time, however, at least 10 states — including six where anti-gay and trans legislation has been enacted — in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in full or in part. Civil rights advocates have complained that this will make it harder to . 

“We are grateful to see that, finally, transgender young people are being counted,” says Nath. “We urge all public health institutions to continue collecting data on this population, and to fund additional research and resources to better serve and protect transgender youth across the country.”

A group of Montgomery County parents has asked the Supreme Court to review the school system’s refusal to let them opt their children out of classes that use LGBTQ+ books in lower elementary school grades.

, filed last week, claims the school system’s refusal to let parents opt their children out of the classes infringes on their religious liberty rights by exposing the children to gender and sexuality norms that contradict their religious beliefs.

The policy gives parents – who include Muslim, Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox families – “no protection against forced participation in ideological instruction by government schools,” as their petition claims.

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A Montgomery County school spokesman said the system was aware of the Supreme Court appeal and was reviewing it, but that the system would not comment on ongoing litigation.

The appeal is the latest twist in a case that began two years ago, when the schools unveiled a list of “LGBTQ+-inclusive texts for use in the classroom.” Those included books to be used in lower grades, including one for use in kindergarten and pre-K classrooms.

The books were introduced in the 2022-23 school year and are not part of a mandatory reading list for the classrooms but can be used by teachers in classroom instruction.

At issue are seven books in the lower grades, which include titles such as “My Rainbow,” which tells the story of a mother who creates a rainbow-colored wig for her transgender child; “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a girl worried she will lose time with her soon-to-be-married uncle, until his boyfriend befriends her and gains her trust; and “Pride Puppy,” about a puppy lost at a Pride parade, which uses each letter of the alphabet to describe the people it might have met there. The last book, for kindergarten and pre-K, invites students to search for drag kings and queens, lip rings, leather and underwear, among other items, according to court documents.

In court documents, a school system official said the books were not planned to be part of “explicit instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in elementary school, and that no student or adult is asked to change how they feel about these issues.” Instead, the official said, teachers were expected to make the books available in the classroom, recommend them as appropriate for particular students or offer them “as an option for literature circles, book clubs, or paired reading groups; or to use them as a read aloud” in class.

Parents who objected to the use of the books were originally allowed to opt their children out of lessons that included the books. But the school system in March 2023 announced that opt-outs would no longer be allowed, beginning in the 2023-24 school year. It said parents can opt students out of parts of sex education, but not other parts of the curriculum, like language arts.

That sparked a lawsuit by a group of parents who objected on religious and secular grounds. They said they were not trying to ban the use of the books in Montgomery County schools but argued that, with no opt-out requirement, they were being forced to expose their children to ideas that conflicted with their firmly held religious beliefs.

So far, the underlying elements of the case have not been heard, merely the parents’ request for a preliminary injunction of the school system’s opt-out policy, which the parents have repeatedly lost.

A federal district judge in August 2023 denied the parents’ request for a preliminary injunction and a divided panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May, writing that the parents had not met the high burden of showing that they were likely to win on their claim that the lack of an opt-out policy was actually coercing them to abandon part of their faith.

The majority opinion, written by Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee, said that because the record in preliminary injunction hearings was extremely sparse, the parents had not been able to “connect the requisite dots” to show that a burden on their First Amendment rights existed.

While the parents had shown that the books “could be used in ways that would confuse or mislead children and, in particular, that discussions relating to their contents could be used to indoctrinate their children into espousing views that are contrary to their religious faith. … none of that is verified by the limited record that is before us,” Agee wrote.

“Should the Parents in this case or other plaintiffs in other challenges to the Storybooks’ use come forward with proof that a teacher or school administrator is using the Storybooks in a manner that directly or indirectly coerces children into changing their religious views or practices, then the analysis would shift in light of that record,” Agee wrote.

The fact that parents might feel forced to forgo a public school education and pay for private school was not sufficiently coercive to be a burden on the parents’ First Amendment rights, based on the record so far, he wrote.

In a dissent, Circuit Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. said parents had met their burden for a preliminary injunction while the case was heard.

“Both sides of the issue advance passionate arguments. Some insist diversity and inclusion should be prioritized over the religious rights of parents and children. Others argue the opposite,” Quattlebaum wrote.

But the parents have made the case for an injunction of the opt-out policy for now, he wrote.

“The parents have shown the board’s decision to deny religious opt-outs burdened these parents’ right to exercise their religion and direct the religious upbringing of their children by putting them to the choice of either compromising their religious beliefs or foregoing a public education for their children,” Quattlebaum wrote. “I would … enjoin the Montgomery County School Board of Education from denying religious opt-outs for instruction to K-5 children involving the texts.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on and .

However, more than 80% of LGBTQ students feel , and nearly 58% have experienced discrimination. These numbers show that many LGBTQ students are not safe at the two places they spend most of their time. This lack of safety has a significant impact on students’ mental health, school performance, relationships and future plans. LGBTQ students are not getting the support they need, and it is resulting in systematic harm.

Teachers are in a perfect position to be the accepting adult LGBTQ students need and to advocate for them in their schools. Students spend thousands of hours in school over the course of their K-12 careers. In that time, they form trusting relationships with teachers, especially those who serve as coaches, club advisers and activity leaders. School is where many explore the names, pronouns and identities that feel right to them. How teachers react to this exploration directly impacts how students feel about themselves and their safety. Teachers also have the ability to push for improvements to policies to make schools safer for students when students can’t advocate for themselves. 

Without this support, queer students are more likely to .

Advocacy for queer students can take a variety of forms, depending on the school and district, as well as state laws and policies that might limit what educators can do.

Teachers can establish themselves as a safe person in a variety of ways, like including items in the classroom such as flags, posters and . This can also be done through clothing and accessory choices including rainbow earrings, lanyards, buttons, bracelets and other jewelry can help students know they are safe.

Teachers can also set up a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance or Gender and Sexuality Alliance). These groups have a variety of names (Rainbow Club, Come As You Are Club) and create a space for LGBTQ students to gather. There are huge when a school has a GSA, even if students don’t attend. These include feelings of safety and better psychological well-being and reduced likelihood of hearing homophobic remarks or negative comments about gender expression or transgender individuals. , meaning that if a school has any extracurricular clubs, it has to allow GSAs. Information about starting one can be .

It is important to know school and district policies about bullying and discrimination. Teachers should learn how students can report this type of behavior and what should happen after they make that report. They should understand the power structure in the school and district so they understand the chain of command. They should also find out who the Title IX coordinator is — — and learn how that system works. This will help them assist students in reporting instances of harassment and provide ground to stand on when they talk to administrators about policies that aren’t followed or students who aren’t being protected. 

Teachers can advocate for specific policies like creating gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms, improving anti-bullying policies and harassment reporting,and addressing dress codes that target LGBTQ students. They should go into these meetings prepared with research and statistics about the needs and experiences of queer students, school and/or district policies, state and/or federal laws, students’ personal observations or specific concerns. It’s also helpful to come prepared with possible solutions as a starting point for discussion, and to follow up to ensure that things change.

Advocating for LGBTQ students is, unfortunately, a long process in most schools — it takes work and it takes courage. Educators may feel alone at their schools, but they aren’t. Lots of teachers are advocating for students in schools across the country, and there are support systems in place. is one place to start. Teachers need to keep fighting the good fight and helping the kids who need it. 

LGBTQ teens are twice as likely as the overall student population to have a medically documented disability. Three-fourths of the disabled LGBTQ students researchers surveyed have a mental health diagnosis, such as depression or anxiety, and nearly 60% have a neurodevelopmental disability such as autism. One-fourth have a physical disability. More than half have more than one diagnosis.  

Nearly two thirds — 62.5% — reported physical or verbal harassment in the month before the survey. Half were made fun of, while 1 in 10 were hit or pushed by other students, according to the report.

More than 80% of disabled LGBTQ students surveyed are transgender or nonbinary, posing challenges ranging from the to barriers to participation in school sports. They are more likely to be bullied than their straight, cisgender disabled peers. Only a third say they have reported harassment to school staff. 

“Gender-inclusive restrooms, locker rooms and other spaces are a rarity,” the report notes. “As a result, disabled trans and gender-expansive youth face heightened access barriers to bathrooms and facilities that both match their gender identity and which accommodate their disability.” 

Separate research by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that two-thirds of school buildings are to many people with disabilities. Restrooms were one of the top settings the agency found that children with impaired mobility and other physical disabilities could not use.

One-fourth of LGBTQ children with disabilities surveyed by the Human Rights Campaign have physical disabilities. 

Paradoxically, the high number of barriers disabled LGBTQ youth face may partially account for the fact that they are more likely to be out to the adults in their lives than their non-disabled peers, the campaign found. Three-fourths say they have disclosed their gender identity or sexual orientation to a school staff member, versus 64% of all LGBTQ youth. Nearly 90% are out to at least one member of their immediate family, versus 83%. 

Over the last four years, right-wing lawmakers throughout the country have introduced in state legislatures and Congress seeking to curtail LGBTQ student protections. In-school victimization has skyrocketed during that time, along with that bathrooms, locker rooms and other settings specifically targeted by many of the resulting new laws are increasingly unsafe. 

In February a nonbinary teen in Oklahoma died by suicide the day after being by three students who had been bullying them. A new state law forced Nex Benedict, who was disabled and Native American, to use the girls’ bathroom where their head was smashed into the floor. Calls to mental health crisis lines soared after the incident, which is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. 

A February of FBI records found that anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in schools have quadrupled in states where the laws have passed. A 2023 investigation by ����Ӱ�� Million found rates of in-school victimization rising in places where queer students still enjoy strong protections, something researchers attribute to a “spillover effect.”

The new report draws on a subset of data gathered in a 2022 survey by the Human Rights Campaign and researchers at the University of Connecticut. Of the LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 18 surveyed, 30% reported having been diagnosed with one or more disabilities by a health care provider. This is twice as high as the rate at which disabilities are .  

The actual number of LGBTQ children with disabilities is likely higher, since many families lack the resources to get formal diagnoses. Although their experiences are not included in the report’s data analysis, a higher number of LGBTQ youth overall — some 35% — reported a self-diagnosed disability. The disparity was higher among gender non-conforming youth, with one-third reporting a medical diagnosis and 41% saying they considered themselves disabled. 

In general, children from marginalized demographics and those with inadequate insurance are most likely unable to get a medical diagnosis, which is often necessary to access disability services.

In schools, the specific accommodations a special education student needs are spelled out in a legal document known as an individualized education program. Involving a team of caregivers and educators, the creation of this plan may account at least in part for the greater likelihood that disabled LGBTQ students are out to school staff, says Human Rights Campaign Public Education and Research Director Shoshana Goldberg. 

“This IEP process could establish the teacher as a trusted adult, which would increase the student’s desire to [or] comfort with disclosing LGBTQ+ identity,” she said in an email. “In addition, within the IEP, trans and gender-expansive students may also need to outline specific accommodations that address their gender identity — e.g. access to single-gender restrooms [or] locker rooms — necessitating being out to teachers.” 

Separate research has documented dramatically higher rates of transgender individuals diagnosed as autistic. In one study, 5% of cisgender people were autistic, versus 24% of gender non-conforming people. 

Other surveys of queer youth well-being have found escalating mental health issues as hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in statehouses in recent years. In a 2023 report, The Trevor Project found that almost half of LGBTQ 13- to 17-year-olds had considered suicide in the prior year, compared with 19% of high school students overall. Seventy percent reported anxiety and 57% experienced depression.

Advocates are careful to note that LGBTQ youth and children with disabilities have high rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions in part because of the discrimination and barriers to inclusion they often face. Nonetheless, the disproven idea that mental illnesses can cause people to become gay or transgender persists in political debates.

The Human Rights Campaign report adds to a growing body of documentation linking unsafe school environments to poor mental health — often a particular physical space such as a locker room or restroom. In a 2021 school climate survey, GLSEN found nearly half of LGBTQ students avoid school bathrooms because they feel unsafe. About 4 in 10 avoid locker rooms and gym classes. 

LGBTQ students in general are half as likely to participate in school athletics than straight, cisgender children: 22% versus 49%. While two-thirds of disabled queer youth engage in some sort of extracurricular activity, only 18% play sports.

Some 1.5 million students of all ages are excluded from athletics because of a physical disability, while 37% of transgender and nonbinary youth ages 13 to 17 from participation on teams that align with their gender identity. Estimates of how many U.S. teens are gender nonconforming vary because more young people now identify as something other than trans or cis gender, but the suggests 300,000 are transgender.     

Data on LGBTQ youth that can be analyzed by demographic subgroup, like the Human Rights Campaign’s surveys, is rare. Sexual and gender minority status is rarely noted in data collected by census, education and public health officials.

A federal district court judge in Missouri has blocked implementation of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule in six additional states — Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The , ordered late Wednesday, brings to 21 the total number of states where the U.S. Department of Education can’t enforce the rule on Aug. 1.

Judge Rodney W. Sippel, a Clinton nominee, said the plaintiffs have a “fair chance” of demonstrating that the department “exceeded its statutory authority” by using the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County to expand Title IX protections to LGBTQ students. 

Ravina Nath, a recent graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, originally included Rice University in Houston on her short list of colleges to attend this fall. With an interest in neuroscience, she was drawn to its top-ranked biomedical engineering program. 

That was before Texas became one of to sue the U.S. Department of Education  over its new Title IX rule. The regulation extends protections against discrimination and harassment to LGBTQ students and requires prompt investigations into students’ complaints.

Instead, she’ll attend Barnard College in New York City.

“I need to be in a place where I would feel like my school supported me,” said Nath, who became a in high school. At Rice, some students to how officials handled complaints of sexual misconduct. And she ruled out the University of Georgia, a “potential safety school,” because it to make data on such investigations public. Several of her friends made similar calculations when narrowing down school choices. 

“My friends who are survivors and who are LGBTQ+ students applied to schools on the West Coast or the Northeast,” she said. “I don’t think any of my friends applied to school in .”

With the new rule set to go into effect Aug. 1 — just seven days away — a flurry of lawsuits has once again turned the map of the United States into a familiar patchwork of red and blue.

District courts have blocked the regulation in 15 Republican-led states. In the most recent development, the on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow all but related to gender identity issues to go into effect in 10 of those states after two appellate courts denied earlier requests. 

Complicating the legal math further, in an earlier action, a federal judge in Kansas the rule just at serving children of current and future members of the conservative Moms for Liberty and students involved in , another advocacy organization opposed to trans girls competing on teams consistent with their gender identity. Moms for Liberty sees the ruling as an expansion opportunity: On Tuesday, the group tied to Title IX.

With the legal landscape changing daily, some experts think the Education Department should take a step back and delay the rule.

“For schools, universities and students, it’ll calm things down,” said Sandra Hodgin, who runs a Title IX consulting firm in Los Angeles. “What are we talking about, 75% of the country not implementing Title IX and only 25% of the country implementing it?”

A spokesperson said the department has no plans to skirt the Aug. 1 deadline. On Tuesday, it sent schools a list of “” and a on how to draft policies to comply.   

For now, the Supreme Court is considering whether to lift the temporary pause on the rule in the affected states.

The far larger question is what the justices might decide if and when they consider the substance of the rule itself. In addition to expanding protections to LGBTQ students, the new rule largely replaced one issued under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. That regulation narrowed the definition of sexual misconduct and required live hearings so male students could face their accusers. 

W. Scott Lewis, managing partner with TNG Consulting, which trains districts across the country on Title IX, has advised red states covered by an injunction, like Wyoming and Idaho, that they’re currently bound by the 2020 regulation.

But that could change quickly. 

“It’s a race to the Supreme Court right now,” he said.

‘Bigger than sports’

Some families with LGBTQ students aren’t waiting for the legal drama to run its course. They’ve already to escape laws that bar trans students from using bathrooms or playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Several have moved to the Denver metro area, where Lewis lives, to attend schools in a state that is not challenging the rule.

“We have more than a handful of students at my kid’s high school who moved here from Wyoming, from Kansas, from Iowa,” he said. 

Most of the controversy surrounding Title IX focuses on trans students’ participation in sports, a part of the rule that the U.S. Department of Education has delayed addressing until after the election. But in Lewis’s estimation, that issue is “bigger than sports.” 

“If I’m in a state that won’t let me compete, I’m probably not in a state that’s very friendly to LGBTQ students on the whole,” he said. “I’m far more likely to just move on.”

In blue states set to implement the new rule, many conservative parents say their children’s rights are also at stake. 

They’re concerned students would be disciplined for not using LGBTQ kids’ preferred pronouns, forced to censor their speech or share bathrooms and locker rooms with trans students.

Hillary Hickland, a mother of four in central Texas, moved her children out of the Belton Independent School District partly because she felt there was too much emphasis on students’ gender identity. Her sixth grade daughter told her that teachers encouraged a friend to identify as a boy and use a boy’s name without the parents’ knowledge. 

“Don’t do it behind the backs of the parents. That’s a huge violation of trust,” she said. As a Republican running for the Texas House, she’s concerned about sexual orientation and gender identity becoming part of Title IX. “We have the federal government dictating what goes on in our local public schools. It really undermines the neighborhood school and that culture that we’re trying to preserve.”

‘Nine months behind’

Lewis predicts the Supreme Court will eventually follow its precedent in , which said that at least in the workplace, LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination. The Biden administration’s new rule rests on that decision.

, who wrote that majority opinion, “can’t undo Bostock. He said sex means LGBTQ rights,” Lewis said. In red states where the rule is on hold, districts “better be ready to implement very quickly because [they’re] going to be nine months behind everyone else.”

If the court also decides to address sports participation — an expected part of the regulation the administration has yet to issue — Lewis said it’s possible the justices would rule similar to the way they handled , leaving it to the states to determine when trans students can compete on teams consistent with their gender identity. 

He called that a “nightmare scenario” because it would “create a world where athletes could compete in some states but not others.” And at the college, NCAA level, “there will be all sorts of questions that can’t be limited to state borders,” said Joshua Dunn, executive director of the Institute of American Civics at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “They’ll have to address that, too.”

Dunn also suggested the conservative court might not follow Bostock and could treat LGBTQ issues differently at school than they do in the workplace. He noted cases, like , where the court put limits on students’ First Amendment rights in schools “that it would never allow outside of K-12 education.” 

Overturning ‘Chevron’

Another recent Supreme Court decision, unrelated to education, adds an additional layer of uncertainty to the debate over Title IX’s future — one that could affect both sides. 

In , the court overturned what was known as “Chevron deference,” which gave federal agencies broad authority to interpret ambiguous laws through guidance and regulations. The decision gives federal courts more power to explain the law when it’s unclear, and experts say, should end “.”

The Obama administration first issued a in 2011 stating schools’ obligations to protect students from sexual violence and harassment, which the Trump administration largely reversed in 2020, followed by yet another 180 in the spring by Biden’s education department.

Republicans have Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that they will review the department’s rules since President Joe Biden took office,  including Title IX. GOP leaders call the rule “overreach.” 

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s , largely assumed to be a legislative blueprint for a second Trump term,would remove the terms sexual orientation and gender identity from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.”

But if Trump tries to reinstate the DeVos rule, Democrats could use Loper Bright to bring the same challenge, Lewis said.

“If you … say the department does not have the authority, then the 2020 regulations don’t count either,” he said. “It was exactly the same procedure.” 

A Texas federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ students.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Reed O’Connor said the Biden administration lacked the authority to make the changes and accused it of pushing “an agenda wholly divorced from the text, structure, and contemporary context of Title IX.” Title IX is the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational settings.

“To allow [the Biden administration’s] unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress,” wrote O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee. “That is not how our democratic system functions.”

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The Biden administration’s new guidelines, issued in April, expanded Title IX to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The changes would make schools and universities responsible for investigating a wider range of discrimination complaints. The rule changes came as several states, including Texas, have approved laws in recent years barring transgender student-athletes from participating in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity. The Biden administration hasn’t clarified whether the new guidance would apply in those cases.

Texas and several other states have the Biden administration over the new rule. . A month after the guidelines were released, Gov. called on school districts and universities .

“Threatening to withhold education funding by forcing states to accept ‘transgender’ policies that put women in danger was plainly illegal,” said Texas Attorney General in a statement applauding Tuesday’s ruling. “Texas has prevailed on behalf of the entire Nation.”

An U.S. Education Department said in a statement it stands by its revised guidelines.

“Every student deserves the right to feel safe in school,” the statement reads.

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at .

One-third of LGBTQ youth outed to their families were more likely to report major symptoms of depression than those who weren’t, according to the University of Connecticut research. Transgender and nonbinary youth who were outed to their parents reported both the highest levels of depression symptoms and lowest amount of family support. 

The first research to link teens’ nonconsensual disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity to poor mental health, the report also found 69% said the experience was extremely stressful. Forcibly outed youth also reported low levels of family support. 

Since 2022, requiring schools to out transgender students to their families, potentially affecting more than 17,000 young people: Idaho, North Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama. Proponents say the measures are necessary to uphold parents’ right to information about their kids. LGBTQ and mental health advocates counter that the laws violate students’ privacy rights and can put them in danger of being abused or thrown out of their homes. 

Forced outing “is a relatively common experience, and we need to understand more about it,” says Peter McCauley, a doctoral candidate at UConn. “People should be coming out under their own terms.” 

The data, McCauley says, bolsters research on why queer students who are victimized in school often don’t seek help. According to cited in the new report, 44% of LGBTQ youth say they have not reported harassment to an adult at school out of fear their parents would learn their identity. A majority of sexual-minority teen boys were threatened with outing by peers.

The new report used data from ages 13 to 17 collected in 2017 by the Human Rights Campaign and the university’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. Two-thirds of respondents identified as cisgender, and 70% said their LGBTQ status was not involuntarily disclosed to their families. Of those not outed, 36% said their parents did not know they were not heterosexual. Nearly half of gender-nonconforming students said they were not out to their families. 

The survey found no significant racial differences in the stress of being outed. Youth whose parents had postgraduate degrees reported few depressive symptoms and high family support. 

Previous surveys by The Trevor Project, GLSEN and other advocacy groups consistently find that nearly all LGBTQ youth say they are harassed at school — which many nonetheless say is a more supportive environment than home. Fewer than four in 10 queer youth say their homes are LGBTQ-affirming.

There is evidence that people who disclose their sexual and gender identities in adolescence experience less depression and greater life satisfaction in adulthood. But not all teens who come out do so to their families. Some share with friends or trusted adults other than their parents. Youth are often reluctant to come out because they have heard their caregivers talk negatively about LGBTQ people or issues.

In addition to the eight states that mandate outing, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Montana and Kentucky — which collectively are home to a quarter-million LGBTQ youth — have new laws that critics say encourage involuntary disclosure of students’ sexual orientation or gender identity. These measures mandate discipline for educators who “encourage or coerce” children to withhold information from their families, stop schools from “discouraging or prohibiting” parental notification about pupils’ well-being and grant caregivers broad access to mental health and other records. 

Fights over forced outing are also playing out at a local level throughout the country. In at least six states, families who believe student privacy protections violate their parental rights . So far, none of the suits has succeeded.  

A Houston Landing investigation found that during the first two months after mandatory parental notification went into effect in August 2023 in Texas’ Katy Independent School District, . After the story was published, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into the district’s actions, which local discriminated on the basis of gender. 

At least six California districts require schools to disclose a range of information. In January, California Attorney General Rob Bonta that parental notification policies violate the state’s constitution and education laws. The admonition came after a judge’s October 2023 order temporarily halting the enforcement of an outing rule in Chino. 

As legislation seeking to restrict LGBTQ students’ rights has swept statehouses in recent years, the number of states fully administering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System — the nation’s chief survey of young people’s welfare — . Some states, , stopped participating altogether, while others refuse to ask questions about sexual orientation, gender identity, mental health and suicidality.

WASHINGTON — Twenty-six GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over changes to Title IX aiming to from discrimination in schools.

Less than a month after the U.S. Department of Education released its final rule seeking to “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” a wave of Republican attorneys general scrambled to challenge the measure.

The revised rule, which will go into effect on Aug. 1, requires schools “to take prompt and effective action when notified of conduct that reasonably may constitute sex discrimination in their education programs or activities.”

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The lawsuits hail from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

All of the attorneys general in the 26 states suing over the final rule are part of the Republicans Attorneys General Association.

Various advocacy groups and school boards have also tacked onto the states’ legal actions. The lawsuits carry similar language and arguments in vehemently opposing the final rule. They say the new regulations raise First Amendment concerns and accuse the rule of violating the .

LGBTQ+ advocates say the revised rule offers students a needed protection and complies with existing law.

“Our kids’ experience in schools should be about learning, about making friends and growing as a young person. LGBTQ+ students deserve those same opportunities,” Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal at the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in an emailed statement. “In bringing these lawsuits, these state attorneys general are attempting to rob LGBTQ+ students of their rights, illustrating a complete disregard for the humanity of LGBTQ+ students.”

GOP states band together against new regulations

In the most recent effort, sued the on Tuesday, accusing the Department of Education of seeking to “politicize our country’s educational system to conform to the radical ideological views of the Biden administration and its allies.”

The lawsuit claims that under the updated regulations, teachers, coaches and administrators would have to “acknowledge, affirm, and validate students’ ‘gender identities’ regardless of the speakers’ own religious beliefs on the matter in violation of the First Amendment.”

In another lawsuit, a group of Southern states —  — sued the administration in in Alabama over the new regulations.

Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall President Joe Biden “has brazenly attempted to use federal funding to force radical gender ideology onto states that reject it at the ballot box” since he took office.

“Now our schoolchildren are the target. The threat is that if Alabama’s public schools and universities do not conform, then the federal government will take away our funding,” Marshall said in a press release.

The lawsuit also drew praise from Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said “Biden is abusing his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and conflicts with the truth.” He added that the will “not comply” and instead “fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.”

Individual states sue the administration

Meanwhile, some states have opted to file individual lawsuits against the administration.

In Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration late last month in in Amarillo. Paxton filed an amended complaint earlier this week, with two new added.

In an , Paxton said the Lone Star State “will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology.”

Gentner Drummond against the Biden administration earlier this month in federal court in Oklahoma. The also filed a separate suit against the Biden administration.

A hodgepodge of states

In late April, Republican attorneys general in filed a lawsuit against the in federal court in Kentucky.

The states argued that the U.S. Education Department “has used rulemaking power to convert a law designed to equalize opportunities for both sexes into a far broader regime of its own making.”

also sued the Biden administration in late April, echoing the language seen in the other related lawsuits. Seventeen local in Louisiana also joined the states.

Earlier this month, also brought a collective to the final rule.

A spokesperson for the Education Department said the department does not comment on pending litigation but noted that “as a condition of receiving federal funds, all federally-funded schools are obligated to comply with these final regulations.” They added that the department looks forward “to working with school communities all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee of nondiscrimination in school is every student’s experience.”

The department has yet to finalize a separate rule that establishes new criteria for transgender athletes. So far, 24 states have passed laws that ban transgender students from partaking in sports that align with their gender identity, according to the

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com. Follow West Virginia Watch on and .

In early May, Democrats in the House defeated the ” The bill was the latest effort to require public school teachers to answer parents when they ask about changes to their child’s gender identity.

But another bill is moving forward that supporters say would give parents more control over their children’s instruction in schools – and opponents say would intrude on classroom instruction.

would allow parents to opt their children out of any “instruction or program of” sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression.

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Currently, state law allows parents to withdraw their children from classes related to human sexual education. HB 1312 would expand that ability to apply to the additional topics.

Under the existing process, parents must notify the school district in writing that they object to the class material. And the parents must propose alternative instruction that is agreed upon by the school district, and pay for it themselves if there is a cost.

HB 1312 would expand the withdrawal and require school district staff to notify parents at least two weeks in advance of any material that might fall into the category.

Separately, the bill would prevent school districts from requiring that teachers withhold information from parents about their child’s well-being – including information about their sexuality. Individual teachers could still choose not to answer questions from parents about their child’s sexuality, but school districts could not make it a blanket policy under the bill.

The legislation, which passed the House 186-185, appears likely to clear the Republican-led Senate, too; the Senate Education Committee voted to recommend that it pass, in a 3-1, party-line vote.

Supporters say the bill would give parents a greater say in how their children learn about sensitive topics. But opponents said the bill would empower discriminatory views against LGBTQ+ people, and that the notification process would be disruptive to teachers.

“The bill seems to be targeting, and I think stigmatizing, any instruction concerning LGBTQ+ people, and I think that this language really sends the message to LGBTQ+ students that their feelings and identities are something to be shunned, feared, potentially even censored, or not even acknowledged,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

To Sen. Tim Lang, a Sanbornton Republican, the bill would encourage parents to communicate with their children about the topics – knowing that they were coming up in the curriculum – which he said could foster better connections between parents and children.

“Parents should have these discussions with their own children and not have teachers do this. This bill is the prompt for parents to have those conversations.”

Lang said the notification requirements would not prevent school districts from teaching the topics, but would rather allow parents to choose whether to participate in them. And he argued that the bill is not intended to allow parents to withdraw their child from materials that relate to LGBTQ+ people or movements in history.

“It’s just informative to parents,” he said. “Nothing stops the school from doing those classes. The class is allowed. That just says that if you do it though, because this is a sensitive topic, you need to notify parents.”

A class about Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978, would not fall under the definition of instruction of sexual orientation, Lang said, because Milk was a historical figure. But any instruction directed at students themselves that delved into their own sexual orientations or gender identity – such as that in a sex education class – would need to be disclosed, he said.

But representatives of teachers unions said the bill as written does not make those distinctions clear. Teachers might interpret the law to mean that any class that discussed the history of LGBTQ+ rights would need to be noticed ahead of time, opponents said. And English teachers might feel compelled to disclose any book that featured LGBTQ+ characters, and to empower parents to prevent their children from reading those books.

“If you pass this bill that expands the areas that a parent is required notification of and can opt a child out of, where will it stop?” said Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire. “… Can you study the pay gap between men and women in the same jobs in an economics class, which has to do with policies around gender discrimination?”

Lang disagreed with that characterization; books that happen to include transgender or non-heterosexual characters would not automatically invoke the disclosure requirement, he said. Only instruction that was specifically intended to teach students about sexual orientation or gender identity would need advanced notice, he said.

Brian Hawkins, director of government relations for the National Education Association of New Hampshire, argued that the topics the bill would add to the parental notification law were so broad that teachers would find the law difficult to follow.

“We think that 1312 is another piece of legislation that would significantly limit educators’ ability to teach, and provides far too many instances of vague language and framework to determine when certain actions violate the statute,” Hawkins said.

New Hampshire lawmakers first passed the law allowing parental opt-out from sex ed in 2017. In recent years, Republicans have pushed to allow more parental control over school library books, and have pressed for legislation to require teachers to answer any questions from parents about their child’s preferred pronouns or gender identity in school.

The latest parental notification bill effort, , was “indefinitely postponed” earlier this month, on a voting day when House Democrats had a majority over Republicans in the near-evenly divided chamber. That motion means that the bill is dead and that it cannot return as an amendment to another bill this legislative session.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

The new Title IX rule, which goes into effect Aug. 1, requires districts to promptly investigate complaints, even if they occur off school grounds, and to extend those protections to LGBTQ students. Districts must also train school employees about their obligations to address sex discrimination.

”These regulations make crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination includes all forms of sex discrimination. No one should have to give up their dreams of attending or finishing school because they’re pregnant. No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are or who they love.”

Left unresolved, however, is a second, and more controversial, rule that applies to transgender students’ participation in school sports, which some observers speculate the administration is until after the election.

That did not dampen partisan objections to what they did include, which is expected to fuel a new wave of litigation. Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House education committee, questioned the inclusion of transgender students under Title IX and said the rewrite rolls back protections for women.

“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” she said in a statement. “The rule also undermines existing due process rights, placing students and institutions in legal jeopardy and again undermining the protections Title IX is intended to provide.”

President Joe Biden pledged to overhaul Title IX even before he won the 2020 election, when he said that prevents discrimination against LGBTQ employees on the job guarantees students the same protections at school. But it took over two years for the department to release an initial draft describing its new approach. A proposed rule concerning trans students’ participation in sports followed in early 2023, but has yet to be sent to the White House for final review.

Officials have attributed the delays on both rules to the hundreds of thousands of comments it received from the public. But there’s also been intense backlash from Republicans, who say allowing transgender women to compete on teams consistent with their gender identity upends the original goal of Title IX. 

Advocates and in Congress argued the delay left victims at risk and discouraged some students from reporting incidents because they thought schools wouldn’t respond.

“For many students, a weakened Title IX harassment rule is all they’ve known through their college and high school experience,” said Shiwali Patel, a senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “Extremist politicians have increasingly attacked the rights of LGBTQI+ students, especially, transgender, nonbinary, and intersex students, attempting to codify discrimination through legislation and other policies.”  

On Friday, advocates welcomed the end of this first phase. Even so, many school districts might not be prepared to take the proactive approach that the rule requires. 

“It’s jaw-dropping to see things are still lax and so backwards,” said Sandra Hodgin, founder and CEO of Title IX Consulting Group, a Los Angeles-based firm. Some districts, she said, have outdated policies or don’t inform students how to file a grievance. 

Districts will have to act fast, she said, to ensure they have a Title IX coordinator who is up to speed on the new requirements and can “help them navigate all of it.” She noted a that found Liberty University, a Christian college, discouraged students from reporting sexual violence. “K-12 systems are going to be looking at things like that and hopefully say to themselves, ‘We don’t want to be that example.’ ”

In addition to requiring districts to promptly investigate any “sex-based hostile environment” in education programs both in and outside of school, the revised rule also removes the requirement for live hearings with cross-examination for sexual misconduct investigations. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos added to protect the due process rights of male students who argued they’d been unfairly accused of harassment or misconduct. 

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, dismissively noted the 2020 rule required schools to be “no more than not deliberately indifferent” to harassment.

The Biden administration has expected districts to comply with its applying Title IX protections to LGBTQ students even as Republican states filed litigation challenging that interpretation. Twenty-two states sued in 2022 over guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school nutrition, stating that programs receiving federal funds must follow or risk being reported to the Department of Justice. 

Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he expects “lawsuits from state attorneys general within days, or at longest weeks.” Some, he said, will challenge the administration’s decision to extend Title IX’s protections to include gender identity.  the rule could violate free speech if an offensive comment or a teacher’s refusal to use a preferred pronoun, for example, is perceived as discrimination. In a Thursday call with reporters, a senior administration official said if such a situation “limits or denies [a student’s] access to education,” the person’s behavior could create a hostile environment.

Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, however, said fear of litigation shouldn’t prevent school officials from following the law.

“If I was their council, I would remind them that they’re on the wrong side of the law if they decide to discriminate against LGBTQ students,” she said. “If you want to protect your school against liability, the smart thing to do would be to not choose to discriminate.” 

In a decision this week, a federal appeals court agreed with the Biden administration’s interpretation that Title IX protections for LGBTQ students can apply to athletics. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit blocked West Virginia’s law banning trans students from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

focuses on Becky Pepper Jackson, a 13-year-old transgender girl and middle school track athlete, who has identified as a girl since third grade. 

Last year, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act to go into effect, but the court put it on hold. Buchert said she wouldn’t be surprised if Morrissey appeals the Fourth Circuit ruling as well.

In its Title IX draft for sports, the education department attempted to carve out a compromise, avoiding an across-the-board inclusion of trans students on teams consistent with their gender identity. But it didn’t also didn’t ban such policies outright. The draft states that schools and colleges could limit transgender students’ participation in specific sports — particularly at the more competitive high school and college levels. But in the elementary grades, and likely into middle school, most students would be able to play sports consistent with their gender identity.

Buckert said advocates hope the department will “issue a strong rule that provides clarity about where the department stands on those issues.”

, the Republican presidential nominee, has said he won’t “allow men in women’s sports.” If he wins, some observers wouldn’t be surprised to see him rescind any attempt by the Biden administration to allow trans students to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. 

“We’re looking at a very polarized Title IX conversation,” she said.