culture wars gripping the two countries.In the U.S., a Florida teacher was fired for hanging a Black Lives Matter flag over her classroom door in August last year.
In December 2021, a Massachusetts school teacher was fired for opposing critical race theory in several TikTok videos.In April this year, a Missouri high school teacher lost her job for allegedly using critical race theory in class by assigning a young adult novel titled "Dear Martin" —a book which talks about a Black high school student going to a predominantly white preparatory high school who falls victim to police violence— to her students.Critical race theory is a decades-old academic theory that examines America's history and institutions through the lens of racism.An analysis by The Washington Post published in June found that more than 160 teachers in the U.S.
had lost their jobs due to the political debates surrounding the culture wars.Gender and transgender issues are still a divisive topic in American society, even though recent polls suggest that an increasing number of Americans are exposed to issues regarding trans and LGBTQ+ rights.A Pew Research Center poll published on September 5 found that one in five U.S.
adults know someone who goes by a gender-neutral pronoun, while six in 10 say they have at least heard about people preferring to use they/them pronouns even though they don't know these people personally.But exposure and experience doesn't translate into more support for respecting trans and non-binary people's identity.