On the first day of a new school year, it is customary for a teacher to give a short and concise introduction about their life. This introduction allows students to form a connection with their teacher, which will help create a focused and supportive classroom environment. Teachers are very important figures in the lives of students, and having a personal connection with a teacher or authority figure is vital for the growth of adolescent minds. According to the American Psychological Association, “Teachers who foster positive relationships with their students create classroom environments more conducive to learning and meet students’ developmental, emotional and academic needs.” 

With this in mind, think about how specifically heterosexual teachers speak freely about their families in the classroom. In the average school, it is perfectly acceptable for a pregnant teacher to discuss her expectant child, and it is also acceptable for heterosexual teachers to show photos of their families. Although, this is not the case for teachers who identify with the LGBTQ+ community. Casey Scott, a first year teacher at a middle school in Florida, was fired after explaining to her class that she is married to a man, but identifies as pansexual. This reference to her sexual orientation provoked a class discussion. Additionally, students began asking her if they could make art pieces describing their own personal identities, which she hung on the classroom door. This resulted in her termination because the school district claimed she “did not follow the state mandated curriculum.” 

The most comical part about these stories of classroom conversations regarding the identity and sexualities of teachers and students is that right-wing conservatives believe teachers to be indoctrinating their students on the LGBTQ+ community. According to these conservatives, it is indoctrination if someone simply shares their sexual or gender identity, but it is not indoctrination when children are sent to conversion therapy and forced to change their personal identity entirely? And to the most hilarious bit of their stupidity: were people gay when being gay was never spoken about in schools? Yes. Will people be gay regardless of people speaking about being gay? Absolutely yes. 

This is a prime example of the silencing of LGBTQ+ people in the education system. As a now seventeen year old in the United States education system, I had to learn myself what the AIDS Epidemic was. I had heard of it in passing, but never knew the true horrors of it until I found myself looking at an electronic version of the Quilt. We were never taught about Stonewall, or any singular LGBTQ+ activist. The U.S. loves to gloss over even the most horrific crises imaginable, like the Holocaust, Slavery, and the grotesque treatment of Indigenous and Native Peoples. Up until a few years ago, the only Civil Rights Activists I could recall the names of were the fear they force fed us year after year. Not that they are not important, there are just so many names in history whom we must carry with us. Yet, every year, we get handed a textbook from ten years earlier, and learn the same lesson again. 

In the fourth grade, the U.S. education system taught me that abstinence was the only way. That having sex before marriage would warrant an STD, or worse: teen pregnancy. (And, of course, that it is immoral.) Yet they not once discussed abortion. It is and was “too controversial” yet serves as an only option to so many people across the country. The teacher made the boys leave the room to discuss menstrual cycles and products. For so long, our educators have made menstruation a taboo subject that is not to be discussed. For the longest time I thought it was “embarrassing” to have to carry pads to the bathroom with me, in a little bag too, so the boys wouldn’t see. It’s preposterous that this society conditions young girls and menstruators alike that we are disgusting because we have bodily functions. Despite the fact that without us, there would be no human race period. 

It is such a shame that when a teacher prompts a discussion on the topic of sexual orientation that she is attacked and forced out of her job. As a student, I feel comfortable in my classrooms when there is a pride flag in the room. It is such a shame that students must fear having a homophobic or transphobic teacher and being discriminated by that figure. No child should walk into a school feeling unsafe on the basis of their identity. And no one, no matter their authority, should have the right to question or change someone’s personal identity. I stand in solidarity with Casey Scott and every teacher who is accepting, understanding, and compassionate towards the wide array of students they teach. Without you, there would be no hope.