Uplifting News

National Gay Task Force v. Board of Education of the City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 729 F.2d 1270 (10th Cir. 1984), was a decision by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that upheld in part, and struck down in part, a law allowing schools to fire teachers for public homosexual conduct. It was the first federal appellate court decision to deny that sexual orientation is a suspect classification. It was affirmed by an equally divided vote in the United States Supreme Court.

Tbf, being a gay teacher ain’t that much better in OK today.

The difference here though I guess - is that people are taking sides. Showing up. Supporting.

I think a lot of LGBTQ people especially are drawn to education. Many of us went through very difficult K12 experiences. The ones who enjoyed the academics - for whom math or English class was a haven in a rocky world - we feel called to help children. We feel called to give them that little safe space. To put up just a single sticker that says “I will call you by the name you wish me to. I will respect you. I will love you.”

This above all is why the narrative is so hard to understand, so twisted. The idea that we are predators. I love every child I have worked with. The ones that hated me, the ones that treated me like garbage, the ones that called me slurs. My queerness did impact my decision to go into education - but because I know that STEM and the arts are places where what you can do will always be greater than what you are. I may be a gay trans man, but I can use laplace transformations to solve a differential equations. I can give this to anyone who asks - why would I not want to at least try to liberate as many children as I can?

I just wish being queer was a non factor. I wish no one cared. I wish I was planning a summer of traveling from city to city setting up free science booths and my uterus was something that only my doctor cared about.