The Clark County School District Board of School Trustees on Thursday will consider policies to protect transgender and gender diverse students. We need the support of Southern Nevada’s LGBTQ communities to make it happen.
A law passed in 2017 requires Nevada schools to adopt policies to protect transgender students, but anti-LGBT special interest groups have been organizing to stop CCSD from following through.
ACLU of Nevada worked for months on a CCSD working group looking at issues faced by gender diverse students and model policies from across the U.S. That group suggested the school district write policies, regulations and guidance documents to uphold transgender students’ right to use the school facilities that match their gender identity, participate in after-school activities and field trips, and be called by the appropriate name and gender pronouns.
The anti-LGBT groups mobilized in response. At state and county school board meetings, they called transgender students demonic, sub-species, a threat to other students. These groups rely on rhetoric and bogus facts given to them by organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom – recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
The anti-LGBT groups seem to have intimidated the CCSD Trustees, who failed to implement the working group’s recommendations at meeting after meeting. Now we need to send a message that Southern Nevada’s LGBTQ communities are watching and will hold them accountable.
Please join us at the next school board meeting and speak in favor of policies to protect transgender students. All you have to say is that you support written regulations, policies, and guidance documents. And wear blue in solidarity with gender diverse youth.
Wesley Juhl is an award-winning journalist turned activist. He is the communications manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.
Protect Transgender Students
5 p.m. | Feb. 22 | 2832 E Flamingo Rd
Wear blue and try to arrive early – seating is limited at the Education Center
Find your CCSD Trustee: http://bit.ly/2svL5VM
Contact your CCSD Trustee: http://bit.ly/2suLXda
Tweet @CCSD_Trustees and tell them: “Protect Trans Students”
