Don't Legislate Hate

Continued attacks on our community's most vulnerable takes focus away from the real issues facing Alaska's schools.

Recently, I participated in a UAA seminar for principal interns. During the question and answer portion of the evening, I was asked about my top education legislative priority. Of course, my top priority is increasing the base student allocation and getting the much-needed and necessary financial resources our schools so desperately need. But my second priority is just as important. I am focusing my efforts and energies to kill anti-trans policies.

I shared with the class that my mother’s partner is trans. My (arguably) favorite cousin is trans. I work with trans folx every day. I sit on nonprofit boards with trans folx. I am proud to be an ally and a vocal supporter because hate sucks.

And it sucks for all the reasons anyone could guess.

• It costs us money: Anti-LGBT discrimination is projected to cost us upwards of $119.9 billion dollars every year.

• It costs us lives: Every 45 seconds an LGBT kid attempts death by suicide and trans and non-binary kids are 2 to 2.5 times more likely to attempt death by suicide.

• It costs us resources: 48% of older LGBT folx experience some form of housing discrimination and 28% of LGBT youth experience houselessness. Right now we are spending considerable resources to address hate instead of getting community members into safe and affordable housing.

By enshrining hate into regulation and public policy, we cost more Alaskans their lives, their sense of well-being, and prevent them from being full participatory members of our communities. It’s appalling to me that I am spending the public’s time and resources focused on stopping harmful and baseless policies.

I would much rather be championing upstream solutions in addressing our increasing rates of juvenile delinquency, focused on building out our renewable energy infrastructure and using my academic background to shape public policy around de-colonizing education systems across the state.

But this is why I am here, to fight for our most vulnerable Alaskans and protect the future of inclusion and acceptance everyone deserves. I ask you to join me in this endeavor by using your voice to call on those in positions of authority to stop legislating hate.

Testify on Thursday, April 13 at 5:15 pm against HB 105, which is a bill that legislates hate and directs schools to adopt anti-trans policies.

Call and request to testify in person by Thursday, April 27 for the May 1-2 Alaska School Activities Association meeting where they are considering a change to their bylaws to enshrine policies targeting trans girls in sports.