The school year is almost here.
While heading back to the classroom is an exciting prospect for some kids, it can be a stressful time for many, and that may be especially true for LGBTQIA+ students.
As a nonprofit public interest legal organization that works to advance LGBTQIA+ equality and protect gender-expansive youth, our heart goes out to young people returning to school amid the shameful record-high onslaught of proposed and enacted laws that aim to make participating in school and school activities like sports intolerable for LGBTQIA+ students.
They need to know there are people fighting alongside them and for them.
We joined colleagues from across the country in signing a letter to support laws and policies that protect transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people from discrimination, including participation in sports and access to gender-affirming care, school facilities, and an inclusive curriculum.
This letter makes important points that are obscured in the divisive rhetoric propping up policies that target transgender and gender-expansive student-athletes:
The record number of bills seeking to exclude transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth from athletics not only harm the mental health of trans youth and significantly decrease their opportunities to play, but they also harm all women and girls by policing their bodies. This also especially harms Black and Brown women and girls, who have long been subjected to racist scrutiny for failing to conform to white-centric notions of femininity.
As students return to school, state lawmakers will return to Harrisburg.
This fall, we will continue our advocacy for LGBTQIA+ young people by vigorously opposing any legislation targeting them while continuing to call for the Pennsylvania Fairness Act, the long overdue LGBTQIA+ equality bill that passed the state House earlier this year and now sits in the State Government Committee of the Pennsylvania Senate.
Stay tuned for calls to action as our legislative advocacy ramps up in the fall.
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Women’s Law Project is a non-profit public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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