Okay. I have started recording. I will mute myself and turn off my video and you can go
ahead.
Great. Thank you. I am also going to record on my computer just for a piece of mind.
Recording in progress.
Okay. So we're talking about this school board meeting on Monday where they passed Plan C,
which you are familiar with as you just shared. Were you surprised when they made this decision?
I'm beginning to worry that things don't surprise me anymore. I've been in this position
for five months as the executive director of Fair Wisconsin. And considering we are
the statewide LGBTQ plus civil rights and political advocacy organization, we are very
needed right now. And I am in partnership with GSAFE. We have been filing these Title
9 complaints. And we're not surprised, but we are disappointed by these actions by school
boards.
Yeah. And can you tell me about gender support plans? Is this something all schools have?
Are they always this restrictive?
It's a good question. The district is calling this a gender support plan. And I want to
be very clear that that is not what it is. Gender support plans should always be about
creating safety for a child. And the best practices in a gender support plan, which many
districts do have, is to ensure the safety of the child by working with the kid to figure
out how to best talk to parents and then bring them into conversations. It's really a bridge.
It's what good schools and smart administrators do about so many topics that are potentially
uncomfortable or scary. They create that bridge to bring families together in a place where
the students feel supported and the families have access to resources that they need so
that they can have a conversation that everyone is really ready for. But this policy would
force that conversation before everyone might be ready for it or have the needed supports
to really make it meaningful and make it safe and make it effective as a conversation.
And so gender support plans are really designed to do that. And that is not what this does.
So tell me about some of the impacts that a plan like this does have on transgender
students, but also just the whole student population.
Thanks for asking. I think one of the things we always have to keep in mind is that any
kind of policy that is specifically about, for example, the LGBTQ plus community or about
trans or non-binary students impacts those students, but it also impacts the entire
school community because policies that are about safety for LGBTQ plus children and staff
are really about creating safety for all students and staff. Creating safe and welcoming learning
environments are how we get high achieving kids. And these kinds of restrictive policies that
target a certain group then also just create less and less safety for everyone involved.
I also think it's important that we keep in mind that our kids are listening when we're
having conversations about these policies and when we're talking about the people that they
are impacting. And so our trans and non-binary kids are hearing the language that we use.
And so are their peers. And we really have to pay attention to the kind of language that we're
using and the kind of policies that we're passing to make sure that they are supportive of every
single kid. If you'd like, I could drill down a little bit to this particular policy. One of
the things that really sticks out to me about this policy is that I think it actually takes
away the rights of parents because it prioritizes only the rights of certain parents. One of the
things that struck me is there's a scenario and that this new policy would allow that a student
who would want to go buy a different name and pronouns that the parents agree with and affirm
their own child's gender identity. It is written and it would be written into their own gender
support plan under this policy. Well that policy now says that school staff may use the pronouns
but it doesn't say that they have to. So this scenario in a policy that purports to be about
parental rights is actually a policy that could ignore the plan written by supportive
affirming parents within the school. And I think that that's really problematic and we have to
remember that real gender support plans and real policies about creating safe learning environments
are about the safety of all kids and the safety of trans kids and the way this policy is written
would compromise that. And you mentioned that in the past five months since you've been in this
role there's been an increase of debate over gender politics. It's become a political issue.
What do you think is driving that? I wish someone would ask that question to people who are doing
the ugly things as opposed to all of us who are receiving them because it's a question I've
been asked a few times actually. My response is always that we have to remember that we're
talking about people and not issues. The LGBTQ plus community is being turned into an issue
against our will and we really have to keep centering the humanity of the people that are
most impacted here. And it is discouraging to see the rhetoric but it also is encouraging to see
so many people really standing up for our trans and non-binary family members within the community
and within our allied communities. Yeah so what are organizations like yours like
Fair Wisconsin doing to to challenge these policies? Great question. So Fair Wisconsin and GSAF which
is a partner organization of ours that does incredible LGBTQ plus safety and advocacy work
within schools across the state. We have at this point filed five joint federal civil rights
complaints with the United States Department of Education in support of our trans and non-binary
students and staff in five different districts. They are all districts that have taken votes
that we say are fostering hostile environments in violation of Title IX. They've done it all
in sort of different ways. Some have made really anti-trans, really transphobic, really dehumanizing
statements during public meetings. As school board members some have made votes to actively sort of
delete out the words gender identity from the Title IX policies within their school board
policy and so we have filed these federal civil rights complaints to make sure that they get
back into compliance with Title IX and stop fostering this very hostile environment at the
district level. Because Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and that includes discrimination
on the basis of gender identity. The regulations that made clear that that is included went into
effect on August 1st of this year but really federal courts have recognized the Title IX
expense to gender identity in Wisconsin since 2017. So we're really trying to make sure that
these school boards are doing the right thing by their trans and non-binary students and we're
also taking steps right now to collect information from the communities. So if people are seeing
their school boards taking actions like the ones that we saw in Watertown, we want to know. We have
a tip line, tethymonyatfairresponsein.com. It's the easiest way to let us know that things are
happening in your community. There are over 420 school districts in the state so it's a little
hard to keep tabs on everything. We are doing our best to make sure that when we learn of anti-trans
actions being taken by district leadership that we are following up and taking some next steps to
try and protect our kids. So it seems to me like policies like the Watertown one and Title IX are
directly in conflict. How is it even possible that a school district can pass a policy like that and
it's not considered illegal? I think it is illegal and that's why we're submitting these federal civil
rights complaints. And so I was at the meeting on Monday and a lot of the community members
that spoke up cited concerns about safety and privacy. How would you respond to those concerns?
So the updated Title IX regulations that include gender identity, they were made with a lot of
thought over 20 plus years of best practices being developed by educators and students and families
in schools across this entire country. They were being developed with the idea that these
are people, these are professionals who deeply care about balancing the privacy of students
without sacrificing the safety and dignity of any student including any trans or non-binary
student. There was a lot of thought put into this. There was a public comment period because
these are regulations and so they went through the rulemaking process. I understand that this
is a topic that a lot of people have a lot of feelings about and I completely
invite people to have very respectful and understanding conversations about it but we
definitely need to keep in mind every time we have these conversations that we are talking about
children and we are talking about children who are amongst our most vulnerable because they
are amongst our most marginalized and we absolutely need to always be centering their humanity.
I think a lot, oh I'm sorry, my earbud just fell out. Can I start over that point?
Are you there? Yeah, I'm so sorry. I think some of that was probably usable. We'll see.
I'll try and regain my thought those for a second.
So the updates to Title IX that really clarified the inclusion of gender identity,
they were done very thoughtfully over the course of 20 years of best practices of educators coming
together with families and school administrators to try and figure out what was really best for
the safety of all students and the privacy and safety of our trans and non-binary students.
These were not things that were on a whim. They are not easily come to. They were very,
very thoughtfully brought about through a public comment period and through a rulemaking process.
And so I think it's really important that we know that this was a rather methodical long-term
process and that balance between safety and privacy was really thoughtfully weighed.
And also we have to keep in mind that the people were talking about our trans and non-binary
kids. They are some of our most vulnerable kids because they are some of our most
marginalized. And when we think about the safety and privacy of all kids, we also have to think
about the emotional well-being of all kids. And passing policies that target them and that make
them even more marginalized does not help emotional well-being and emotional safety.
And that is something that we need to put a very high priority on as adults and as educators.
And it's something that all of us can really take a step towards inclusion by all making sure
that if someone asks us for a different name or different pronouns that we do it and we respect
that and we show that support. Because that's an individual action that we could all take,
just like a school board could make an inclusive policy that said that as well.
Do you know where Wisconsin stands compared to other states in the nation in terms of these
kinds of policies? Are we more or less restrictive than other states?
That's a great question. I can tell you the big answer is I do not actually know but I can tell
you that when Wisconsin started taking on between fair Wisconsin and GSAFE, these joy
complaints about Title IX and making sure that our school districts were in compliance.
We've been doing it in partnership with GLSEN, which is the national organization. And they
are aware of these Title IX violations school districts being out of compliance in a similar
way to Wisconsin in at least five other states. So this is something that is happening in other
states. It's also such an odd legal landscape right now because there is an injunction about
the Title IX regulations in many states in the country because of the Attorney General lawsuits.
Wisconsin is not one of those states. We are a state where Title IX regulations are in effect,
but it is a pretty complicated legal landscape.
Thank you Abigail. Is there anything else you want to share on this topic?
Would it be okay if I just shared for a second, there's sort of an elephant in the room every
time I talk about Title IX right now and it's because of the change in presidential administration
that's on the horizon. So if it's okay, I'd just like to sort of address the elephant in the room
for a sec. Yeah. So we've been getting a lot of questions as to whether or not we will continue
to be doing this work for fair Wisconsin and GSA, whether or not we'll continue
to monitor school boards and receive tips and make sure that if schools are out of compliance
that we file federal civil rights complaints. And the answer is we are going to continue this
work with the upcoming change, of course, in the presidential administration. In fact,
as we have continued to receive inquiries and the resounding answer is Wisconsin
believes that fair Wisconsin and GSA believe and it is true that Title IX protects LGBTQ plus
students and staff. We have civil rights and no matter who occupies the White House and our
organizations are here to make sure those rights are respected. The finding in the OASO School
District Title IX complaint case that was based on Title IX before August 1 really reaffirms the
fact that the courts have recognized in Wisconsin since Whitaker v. Kenosha in 2017, the Title IX
does apply to LGBTQ plus students. We stand by that and we're going to continue to file complaints
as necessary. Thank you so much. Anything else? No, I really appreciate the request for an
interview. Thank you. Please reach out if there's any for anything. I have a feeling our work will
continue to be incredibly relevant. Yes. And I'm sorry that that's the case, but thank you.
That's why we're here. Yes. Okay. So this this story will air Friday night, which you could watch
live. If you watch TV, I know I don't. So I can send it to you Saturday morning once it's
I would be lovely. I would appreciate that. I'm sure my parents will hear it. I will not be watching
TV as better. Okay, great. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.