This story was originally published by The 19th.
Willie Carver has been a teacher in Kentucky since 2007, now working with college students. For over two years, he has worked with the American Federation of Teachers’ National LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy arm of the influential labor union created to counter the rise and repression brought by anti-LGBTQ laws.
One of the country’s most draconian anti-trans measures became law in Carver’s home state last March. The law has required teachers to put politics before the wellbeing of their own students and reshaped how students see and treat each other. It bans them from being taught about gender identity or sexual orientation, using restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity and learning about human sexuality. The law also made gender-affirming care illegal for trans youth.
In October, after the new school semester started, Carver noticed a woman staring at him as he walked off stage at a Pride event in rural Kentucky after talking about issues faced by LGBTQ educators and students. He could tell she needed to talk.
“Her voice was shaky,” he recalled. “She cried as she spoke to me.”
The woman, a fourth-grade teacher, told Carver about one of her students, a boy who was being bullied because he has two moms. His tormentors — two boys about the same age — lobbed slurs at him and chased him around. The teacher intervened, saying to all her students, “In this classroom, all families get treated with respect.”
And that’s when her problems started. Carver said the school administration reprimanded the teacher, telling her that she had broken state law by talking about gender and doing it in a way that infringed on the political choices of the boys’ families. The teacher became terrified of the prospect of losing her job and torn about what to do. If she tried to save the student from being bullied, she could endanger her own child by losing access to her income and their health insurance.
“She was trembling by the end of the story,” Carver said.
Kentucky teachers want to do the right thing, but they are “desperately scared,” he said. They are exhausted and afraid of repercussions if they speak out. Some have chosen to leave Kentucky, including the state’s previous education commissioner, Jason Glass, who decided to resign last September instead of enforcing the state’s new law.
After watching what has happened in his own state, Carver was not surprised to hear that conservative forces are pushing a vision and version of the country where trans-affirming teachers could be labeled as sex offenders.
As he sees it, war has been declared on LGBTQ people — and the idea of protecting children is a linchpin for that war.
“What they want is a very clearly defined society in which straight White men are on top, men earn money and women are subservient,” Carver said. That society is built on strict definitions of marriage, family, femininity and masculinity — a binary lens that excludes many Americans and creates a divisive narrative that ascribes value to people based on gender.
This vision is articulated in a 920-page policy blueprint known as Project 2025. Created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in the nation’s capital, it lays out a far-right Christian vision for Donald Trump’s second term in the White House if he wins in November and draws on the same harmful rhetoric that states have written into anti-transgender........