The day before summer break ended in August, Kenneth and Amelia Smith learned their 13-year-old child would not be addressed at school by her preferred name. So they decided the eighth grader, who had said she was transgender a few months earlier, would learn in their home in Katy, Texas, a conservative suburb west of Houston.
The Katy school district’s decision to tell teachers not to call certain students by names that do not match their birth certificates came after Gov. Greg Abbott signed a Republican-led education bill that prohibits employees at K-12 public and charter schools from “assisting” students with socially transitioning genders, including through name or pronoun changes.
Also banned were authorized student clubs based on gender identity or expression, such as L.G.B.T.Q. Pride clubs, or gender and sexuality alliances.
“We just couldn’t send her to school in that harmful environment,” Ms. Smith, 41, said.
The Texas measure is among the most far-reaching anti-diversity laws in the country and the first to explicitly ban such clubs, part of a broader backlash on gender issues in the state that has already affected higher education. At Texas A&M, a professor was fired and the university president resigned last month after a lecture recognizing more than two genders came under fire. Texas Tech University directed faculty to comply with President Trump’s executive order recognizing only male and female genders.
Supporters of the K-12 law argue that gender and sexuality are topics too contentious for school and that conservative victories in the 2024 Republican primaries, fought specifically on education issues, showed the Legislature was reflecting the will of voters.
“Suggesting that Texas parents are ‘OK’ with what was happening in public schools before Governor Abbott passed these protections is completely absurd,” said Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s spokesman, in a statement.
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The post Texas L.G.B.T.Q. Teenagers and Families Navigate a Public School Clampdown appeared first on New York Times.
