Typically mundane, US school board meetings have become a platform for harsh rhetoric and partisan divides, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ issues and policies that inhibit freedoms for transgender students. From banning books that discuss gender and sexuality to requiring teachers to call students by their legal names, school districts around the country have approved policies that pose “extremely high levels of risk” to transgender students, according to a legislative researcher we spoke to. Still, results from the midterm elections show that not all Americans support them.
On November 8, students staged a walkout at a school in Conway, Arkansas to protest a set of policies targeting transgender students. Two weeks prior, the Conway School Board issued policies to regulate restroom usage based on students’ assigned sex at birth. The ACLU said the move could serve to “stigmatise” students and violate federal laws to protect transgender students in schools.
