If there’s one thing conservatives love, it’s stomping down on LGBTQ+ youth and allies. The group that likes to describe themselves as having family values is dead set on terrorizing the lives of queer people just in time to garner hate votes in November, and their hate campaigns include literal children. As Daily Kos has continued to cover, Republicans are coming down hard in attempts to ban trans folks from simply existing, including participating in sports teams, using public restrooms, and accessing safe, age-appropriate, life-saving gender-affirming health care. It’s shameful.
We’ve covered how conservatives and conspiracy theorists are using school board meetings as a route to spread “grooming” hysteria, especially when it comes to books by and about LGBTQ+ people in public school classrooms and libraries. Some school districts, as we’re seeing happen in Wisconsin, are apparently acting against LGBTQ+ students and staff in every way they can think of.
As Daily Kos covered at the time, the Kettle Moraine School Board recently moved to ban public school teachers and staff from sharing their pronouns in emails, wearing rainbow attire, and displaying signs in the classroom that could be interpreted to have political or religious messages. Because conservatives are unwilling to accept that Pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs are not tied to a political party, those have been banned. The latest update from the school board is that the school board voted to explicitly affirm the Pride flag ban, again using the argument that they’re political, as reported by the Associated Press.
RELATED: Wisconsin school district bans teachers from wearing rainbow attire and displaying Pride flags
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“If you have a policy that says ‘nothing political,’” stated American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Christine Donahoe. “Does that mean you can’t have a sign up that says, ‘Support our Troops,’ or ‘Believe Women’ or ‘Save the Planet?’” She added that to some people, all of those things are political in nature.
According to local outlet FOX 6, the board voted to uphold the ban at a Tuesday night meeting on Aug. 16. The room was reportedly packed, and brave students actually spoke up. Sadly, public comment was cut off at one hour. It’s unclear how many folks who wanted to speak but didn’t have a chance to agreed or disagreed with the policy.
"I am not controversial. I am not political,” one student told the board, per the outlet. “I am a person.”
One student accurately pointed out that pride flags are not a “political stance” but an assertion of self-acceptance and the acceptance of others.
As reported by the outlet, students Britain Farrar and Bethany Provan started a Change.org petition over the summer in an effort to have the school board reverse the policy. At the time of writing, they have about 13,000 signatures.
“It doesn’t feel like my school supports us,” Provan told the outlet, adding that this “sucks.”
Provan is very right—it does suck, and all of these students (and staff) deserve much better.