Wrong for Ohio, Wrong for Students on So Many Levels
Next Wednesday, Oct. 12, the State Board of Education will be voting on a resolution by Brendan Shea, the “Resolution to Support Parents, Schools, And Districts in Rejecting Harmful, Coercive, and Burdensome Gender Identity Policies.” This resolution is wrong for our state and our students on so many levels. Not only does it perpetuate harmful practices and falsehoods about LGBTQ+ people, it also directs local school districts to ignore federal law if they don’t agree. Ignoring this law will lead to loss of specified federal funds for the schools in our state.
Title IX , which most of us are familiar with through the protection of girls’ and women’s sports – has given girls and women equal opportunities under the law and women’s sports have thrived because of it. This federal law also legally protects LGBTQ+ students from harmful, traumatic discrimination and creates a safe, welcoming learning environment for all students.
Title IX rules try to provide safe school environments where ALL of our children feel respected and valued for who they are, not who someone decides they should be.
Mr. Shea’s resolution requires schools to contact parents of LGBTQ+ children against the will of the child. It seems so safe and logical to say that parents should be informed, that they love their children best.
However, facts don’t always support this theory. According to the CDC (CDC.gov – 2020 stats), at least 1 in 7 children have experienced child abuse or neglect in 2020 in the United States. That year, 1,750 children died of abuse and neglect in the United States. This harrowing information seems to me to be enough to support the idea that sometimes kids may not want to tell their parents about something as difficult as believing they are gay or transgender.
Federal laws like Title IX are created to protect the children who need it, and, unfortunately, many do need this protection.
Mr. Shea’s resolution would ban transgender youth from participating in sports or using facilities that align with their gender identity. The number of transgender students is a very small minority of students in Ohio, but this ban would subject these students to further alienation and bullying.
In testimony last month before the State Board, one student who plays field hockey for Olentangy HS in Columbus, reacting to the clause about trans students on sports teams, said the resolution seeks to “strip my humanity, to alienate students like me who just want to be themselves. . . . If you banned me from the sport I love, I will lose a piece of my life. . . . If you take away my right to use the men’s restroom, I will experience hate. I will get stared at, laughed at by girls because I don’t look like them.”
Title IX is a federal agency which protects children from sexual discrimination, but it also provides funding for school lunches and other things important to schools. Mr. Shea’s resolution advocates that state lawmakers allocate state taxpayer dollars to pay for any penalties incurred by school districts for ignoring Title IX legal protections. In other words, our state, which already provides less than adequate funding for public education, is being asked to give away federal funding that provides lunches for the children most in need.
I am very worried about the direction Mr. Shea’s resolution would take us in the state of Ohio. It marginalizes already marginalized students who are a distinct minority and who regularly are bullied to the point of being suicidal. Title IX seeks to protect them — that is all.
Why is it so difficult to accept differences in people and to love and support them the way they are? If we continue this path of discrimination for these students, it is a slippery slope that can lead to the disappearance of rights that — in time — may affect us all.
Madelon Horvath is a former president of the Chardon Schools Board of Education and longtime board member.
