A Vote to Defend Education and LGBTQ+ Youth Will Protect Democracy
Growing up Black, queer, and different in the ’80s and ’90s, I used to wish I saw more people like me on TV and in the news.
This year, I’m heartbroken that LGBTQ+ youth — especially trans and nonbinary children — are being thrust into the spotlight not for their brilliance or leadership, but as political pawns ahead of elections.Last month, a handful of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians in Congress stooped to a new low in their efforts to rile up their base when they introduced a bill to ban discussions of LGBTQ+ people and history in schools nationwide.
It’s a transparent political stunt with little chance of moving forward, but the message is clear: LGBTQ+ youth are under attack this midterm cycle.
Public education is the foundation of a flourishing, multiracial democracy, and these recent anti-LGBTQ+ bans are an insidious, corrosive, two-for-one attack on equality and democracy.Anti-democracy politicians have been using the same political playbook to defund education since schools were desegregated.
