January 17, 2019 Meeting Minutes

Accomplishments

• AISD

  • Participated in the Austin Pride Parade. There were about 400 participants and it included bands and members of school GSAs.

  • Anti-queer groups are pushing a sex ed measure in which schools would be prohibited from mentioning LGBT words, talking about diverse families and sexual orientations, and having discussions about gender. The school board is voting in February. Though in general, the district and its schools are very supportive, there are streaks of opposition. A large group of concerned parents have been attending board meetings and taking action to try to stop this measure.

  • Schools celebrated Pride Week in conjunction with National Coming out Day. Elementary schools did Family Pride Day to celebrate different types of families.

• Cedar Ridge High School

  • Queer book display in the library, working with creative writing club to make it interactive. The library did a good job of putting together queer-themed books.

  • Panel of youth from the GSA spoke in front of the school staff about how teachers can help support the LGBT community.

  • For GLSEN Ally Week, there was queer face painting during Friday morning’s pep rally. People could also make stickers with pronouns, sexual orientation, etc. and may teachers took the stickers as well.

• Connally High School

  • During the week of the Day of Silence, they have a pie in the face contest where students pay money to vote for teachers to get hit with a pie. The money benefits the GSA.

  • They’ve had video announcements at the school where they talked about bullying, LGBT history, trans issues, and intersectionality of race and queerness.

  • They donate to organizations to help homeless youth.

  • Students can put chosen names on their school IDs.

  • There was an increase in the amount of people in the GSA.

  • They have a new co-sponsor.

  • Lots of teachers have put their pronouns in their email signature, which has helped normalize it.

• NYOS Charter School

  • Increased participation in the GSA, and has gotten way more awareness.

• Pflugerville High School

  • 4th annual GSA dance and clothing swap.

• Round Rock High School

  • Had a queer winter formal.

  • Got the administration to agree to put up safe space stickers, and over 80% of the staff has done it.

• Stony Point High School

  • Did a candy/chocolate fundraiser and saved up to buy pins, ribbons, and stickers for the Day of Silence.

• Miscellaneous

  • Homecoming Parade floats

  • Some schools registered with the Anti-Defamation League as No Place for Hate Schools. Go here: https://austin.adl.org/noplaceforhate/ for more info.

  • During Pride Week, there were homeroom lessons about sexualities and genders.

  • Day of Silence

  • Before the pride parade, students came from different GSAs in AISD to talk about issues they face, in a similar format to the GSA coalition.

Challenges

• AISD

  • There’s no district mandate for Pride Week, so some schools didn’t do anything.

• Anderson High School

  • Some teachers at are having difficulty with using chosen names. For example, when they’re going down the roll, they still use students’ deadnames.

• Connally High School

  • Has an assigned gender neutral bathroom, but it’s far away, so it’s too inconvenient.

  • Administrators never say yes or no to events. They send tons of emails to the principals, but they don’t respond.

  • Some teachers put up safe space stickers but are still transphobic

  • Because their gender-neutral bathroom is in the nurse’s room, you have to get a special nurse pass to use the bathroom.

  • It’s a majority minority school, so the queer community is often overlooked.

• Cedar Ridge High School

  • Bullying in class

  • Lots of homophobic slurs and comments

  • Teachers don’t feel comfortable not outing kids to their parents because they see it as lying.

  • Proposed distributing safe space signs to teachers who want them, but some teachers were upset and felt like they would be targeted if they didn’t put up the signs, so the principal banned all LGBTQ+ related signage.

  • In musical theatre, trans* students are placed in roles matching their sex at birth.

• NYOS Charter School

  • Made posters that said to respect people for who they are and not to pick on people in the bathroom and submitted them to the administration, but they were denied because it could “make some students uncomfortable.”

  • Some trans* kids aren’t allowed to use the bathroom they’re comfortable with, and the only other option is to go to a far-away teacher bathroom.

  • Hard for trans* students to change sports teams.

• Pflugerville High School

  • The locker rooms are uncomfortable for trans* students.

• Round Rock High School

  • The gender-neutral bathroom is in a really far building

  • Bullying

  • People tear down posters.

  • Weren’t allowed to advertise for the queer winter formal.

• Weiss High School

  • Small GSA, so haven’t really done big activities.

  • Put up posters for the Day of Silence and got them approved, but assistant principals took them down.

  • People made homophobic comments on the Day of Silence.

• Miscellaneous

  • UIL regulations seem to make things difficult for trans* people.

  • People at different schools are misgendered in choir and musical theatre.

  • One school requires an email from parents before students can wear the band uniform matching their preferred gender.

Projects/Goals

• AISD

  • Try to have a GSA in every middle school and high school.

  • Standardize the celebration of Pride Week across the district.

• NYOS

  • Building a new campus so all of the grades can be in one place, so they want gender-neutral restrooms.

Solutions

• Bathrooms

  • Stony Point High School has little to no harassment in bathrooms, even though they’re not gender neutral.

  • At Pflugerville High School, if students ask a friend to go with them into the bathroom, there are no problems.

  • The official policy at Georgetown High School is to use the bathroom that matches one’s birth gender or to go to the nurse’s office, but no one really cares, so people use the bathroom they’re most comfortable with.

• Extracurriculars

  • In choir and musical theatre at Round Rock High School, students are consistently placed in parts matching the gender they’re comfortable with.

• Posters

  • In case posters get torn down, put a message on the back of them saying how homophobic it is to tear them down.

  • If administrators are allies, contact them and ask them to talk to the people who took down the posters.

  • Strategically place the posters by cameras.

• Miscellaneous

  • If we get a group of GSAs together, we could talk to the district and maybe make more of an impact.