Headlines from the Granite State
‘Live free and learn’
The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted 195-190 in late May to defeat a so-called “parental bill of rights.” The legislation would have forced teachers to out questioning and LGBTQ students to their parents.
“Questioning and LGBTQ+ students can breathe a sigh of relief today that schools in New Hampshire will continue to be places where they can safely be who they are,” said Linds Jakows, Founder of 603 Equality.
“State Representatives did the right thing and listened to the voices of LGBTQ+ teens, especially closeted teens with unsupportive families. New Hampshire schools must remain places where all students, including LGBTQ students, can live free and learn,” said Jakows.
Said State Rep. Gerri Cannon of Somersworth, “We’ve been heard in New Hampshire, and we’ve set the tone for other states. We need to stand up for the children in our schools. They have rights. Just like all of us, they have the rights to be who they are, safely.”
LGBTQ-supportive teachers ousted
The removal of LGBTQ-supportive teachers from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover, New Hampshire, sparked outrage among parents, students, alumni, and teachers, according to a report in the Boston Globe.
The school, reports the Globe, decided not to renew four teachers’ contracts, and members of the school’s community claim “the school did so because the teachers identify with or support the LGBTQ community, which the school’s president, Paul Marquis, has denied. The Globe also reports that an additional teacher resigned in protest.
“While we are not able to share details regarding specific personnel decisions out of respect for privacy and confidentiality, these four non-renewals had absolutely nothing to do with LGBTQ+ identity or personal alignment or views,” Marquis told the Globe.
“The idea that this nothing to do with religious preference of LGBTQ+ issues and so forth, that’s nonsense and everybody knows it,” said Jeff Thomson, who, the Globe added, taught at the school from 2004 to 2015 and served on the school board for six years prior to that.
UNH student walkout
To protest recent transphobic messaging from two on-campus groups at the University of New Hampshire, students at the school’s Franklin Pierce School of Law staged a walkout and rally with more than 100 students and faculty in late March.
According to a report in the Keene Sentinel, UNH’s Christian Legal Society had sent out an email that appeared to invite the student body to a vigil for the victims in the Nashville shooting at a private Christian school earlier this year, but in the invitation said, “Tragically, this incident comes after a barrage of rhetoric demonizing Christians and anyone perceived to oppose the ontological premises of transgenderism,” and blamed activists and journalists for fueling “this hate and paranoia [against] anyone who opposes the trans agenda.”
At the vigil, the student protestors also called out UNH’s Free Exercise Coalition for making students feel unsafe on campus.
“I’m tired of waking up to headlines and acts of hate against the trans community, and then I have to come to school and see hateful messages against the trans community,” one of the walkouts organizers, law student Hannah Neumiller, told the Keene Sentinel. “We have asked for change. We have asked for better policies for actions and consequences, but it’s always just ‘under review.’”
Banned book drive
Seacoast Outright is partnering with Black Lives Matter Seacoast Youth Division on a Banned Book Fundraiser.
The drive aims to raise donations with a goal of $2,000 to purchase and distribute literature with representative LGBTQ/BIPOC characters to youth and their families in the greater Seacoast area for free this summer.
Some titles include: “The Hate U Give,” “Genderqueer,” “Lawn Boy,” I’m a Wild Seed” and “My Rainbow.” Both groups are also asking for recommendations for other books as well.
“We know that representation is critical, which has been jeopardized by ongoing attempts to ban such books in our schools,” notes Seacoast Outright’s website.
