Defending trans students in NYC schools

In March of 2024, the Community Education Council (CEC) of District Two in Manhattan voted on Resolution 248, which urges the New York City Department of Education to review its policy allowing transgender students to play on teams that match their gender identity. Twelve members are on the CEC for District Two, and on that spring evening, the proposed resolution passed by a vote of eight to four.

In 2002, when NYC public schools were brought under mayoral control, CECs replaced traditional School Boards. Although members of the 32 CECs are elected by parents, they are largely symbolic bodies that can issue non-binding resolutions which the Department of Education views as suggestions, not mandates. The passage of Resolution 248 has little to no effect on school policy, as transgender people are protected by both city and state laws, as well as Chancellor’s regulation. However, District Two’s resolution still poses a significant threat. The danger of Resolution 248 is not its legal impact, but under the influence of right-wing members, the Council has become a platform to promote hate speech in a progressive city that has remained a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people, even as anti-trans legislation and violence against trans people has swept the country.

Maud Maron, an ultra-conservative with close ties to the far-right organization Moms for Liberty, led the passage of Resolution 248. Maron has been a vocal supporter of book bans, fought against school integration initiatives, and against mask requirements in schools during COVID-19. She is a co-founder and a key member of PLACE NYC, a conservative parents advocacy group formed in 2019 to push a racist, transphobic, and homophobic agenda in schools. Since its founding, PLACE has fought to block school integration and equity efforts, preserve gifted and talented programs, and reinstate admissions testing in elite middle and high schools, which have been proven to exclude students of color. Bankrolled by racist billionaires, PLACE endorsed 40 percent of current CEC members elected across the city. As the anti-hedge fund organization Hedge Clippers points out, “almost half of the individuals overseeing their neighborhood schools are aligned with the right-wing agenda and are misaligned with what most parents believe.” Many working-class parents aren’t aware of the purpose of the CECs, or the elections, and if they do vote, know little to nothing about the candidates except their names. This scenario gives a right-wing billionaire-backed organization like PLACE an outsized advantage, with the means to organize and canvas for conservative candidates. Since last year’s CEC election victories, the group has expanded its policy efforts to attack smaller class size law, transgender rights, and antiracist work in schools.

District Two is the second largest school district in NYC, stretching the east side of Manhattan from 97th Street southward (excluding the Lower East Side and the west side south of 59th Street). Covering neighborhoods from the Upper East Side to Chinatown, it represents one of the most economically segregated districts in the city. District Two has 119 schools and nearly 55,000 students. The district includes neighborhoods where some of the wealthiest families in New York City live, and neighborhoods in which the poorest live as well. It is a perfect location for the kind of fear-mongering that organizations like PLACE engage in. Appealing to the wealthiest parents with misinformation that their children are vulnerable to “woke” curriculum and spreading fear that “gender ideology” is indoctrinating their children in schools, PLACE aligned candidates have been able to gain a significant foothold in the councils.

In the first month after the passage of 248, there was a quiet, yet forceful response to the resolution. Although the events were reported on in the local news, it seemed that most parents in the district were unaware that the CEC was even voting on Resolution 248. Even Chase Strangio, an ACLU lawyer specializing in transgender rights and parent of a child in a District Two school was shocked to learn of this development. His work with the ACLU had kept him busy fighting “bathroom bills” and bans on trans women in sports in states outside New York, but he didn’t realize that Resolution 248 was proposed and passed in his own city.  As the ACLU’s Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, he is well known and used his wide following on social media to organize people around attending CEC meetings.

CEC meetings are open to the public and are usually boring events, which become even more drawn out when a contentious resolution such as 248 is being debated. The public comment section can extend a meeting for as long as four hours late into the night. Every month since March 2024, progressive council members have proposed resolution after resolution to rescind 248, and as a result of Strangio’s call to action, members of the public have been turning out to testify. Hundreds of people–from trans kids and their families, to educators, queer community members, and straight allies–have filled school auditoriums and gymnasiums, wearing white and holding up signs in solidarity: “Trans Rights Are Human Rights”, “Let Them Play”, and “Protect Trans Youth”.  Supporters of the resolution are in the crowd but always in the minority. They usually consist of a scattering of angry District Two parents attending alongside their high school daughters, TERFs arguing for the preservation of female-only spaces, and members of Gays Against Groomers, a right-wing LGB organization whose main purpose is to promote a politics of assimilation (gays are normal–“just like everyone else”).  Comments from this population are offensive, bigoted, and unscientific; remarks overheard during the public comment section of meetings have ranged from spectators calling a trans educator testifying before the council a “child molester”, to others claiming that transgender kids “don’t exist”. Ultimately, it is rhetoric such as this that makes the meetings an unsafe place for trans people.

In the spring and early summer of 2024, when the fight against Resolution 248 was just beginning, there were many young school-age transgender children in attendance with their parents. They came to express their distress at Resolution 248 and their disappointment with the CEC.  Testimony by a leader of Gay Against Groomers NYC (GAG-NYC) during public comments included a declaration that “trans girls are not really girls” and should not be allowed to play sports with biological females.  Amidst the public outcry were the tears of a 5-year-old brother and mother of an 11-year-old trans girl who had only just given her own testimony.  Every month since then, I have seen the number of school-age transgender children in attendance dwindle. At the last public meeting in December, there were none. A public meeting where discussion of educational policy takes place should be a safe place for families and children. The fact that it is not is a disgrace and a direct result of GAG-NYC’s aggressive rhetoric.

I have been attending most of CEC District Two’s monthly meetings since April of 2024. As an out-queer, public high school teacher, and the parent of a transgender man and former District Two student, it is crucial that I remain present. I have seen firsthand how social and educational conditions for transgender students can vary widely from school to school. Not every student is out at home or at school. Some do not have supportive families. Many kids are bullied at school, even with protections in place, and because of this, do not want to shine a spotlight on themselves by demanding their rights be upheld. Some would simply prefer to be quiet and safe, rather than vocal and vulnerable. This can make it easy for administrators to ignore the rights of trans and gender nonconforming students in their schools, even though doing so is a violation of Chancellor’s Regulations. In some schools, it takes advocates – parents, teachers, social workers–to know and fight for trans rights: for the right to gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms, and for students not to be misgendered or dead named or bullied.

Trans formative Schools, one of the organizations that have been leading the fight against 248, has focused its attention on bringing out numbers to testify at monthly meetings. As a new cycle of CEC elections is now beginning, organizers are rightly mobilizing to educate progressive parents about the purpose of the CECs and encouraging them to run for a seat on the council in which their children attend school. This strategy would successfully mitigate the effects of the right-wing agenda on our city’s schools.

The targeting and vilification of transgender students sets a dangerous precedent. Immigrants, students of color, students with disabilities, and other LGBTQIA+ youth are all currently protected by state, city, and school laws and regulations. In allowing Resolution 248 to stand, we risk opening the door to the erosion of rights and protections for all vulnerable populations in NYC schools. What is needed is a multi-pronged approach where we continue to protest the bigots at all of their events and disrupt their attempts to make inroads into the safe haven that has been established in New York City. It’s vital for us to continue to come out to monthly CEC meetings in huge numbers to keep the pressure on the people who want to take the sanctuary of our schools away from our children. It is a well-known fact among educators that children who are hungry, traumatized, or living in poverty have a harder time learning. For trans kids, school must be a place where they can be free to live in their truth. Children who aren’t allowed to express their true selves also struggle to learn.

In the nightmarish Trump America that we have witnessed since the inauguration, we must also think and strategize collectively. We must link and broaden the activist networks to include groups who are targets (such as undocumented immigrants) and others who may become future targets of the conservative CECs. As educators, we need to call on our union, the United Federation of Teachers, to continue to take a clear stand in support of student rights, as well as standing up for those teachers who defend transgender students. Solidarity among teachers, transgender students, activists, and community members will be crucial for our city to remain a progressive oasis in a Trump America.

Featured Image credit: Photo by Danielle Bullock; modified by Tempest.
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