Most people dont know that you can just go testify at congressional hearings. You dont have to be important or register in advance. When I went to cover the hearing for Louisiana House Bill 466 legislation that would prohibit teachers from discussing matters of gender and sexuality with students in public schools the people I saw offering testimony for Louisianas version of Dont Say Gay were just other concerned citizens like me. So I decided to speak.

My testimony centered on my experience as a former educator. I explained that I had not been officially out when I was a teacher over a decade ago. More specifically, I wasnt out to the administration. But I didnt hide my queerness from my students. I never had to come out to my students they just knew.

I recounted how my fourth grade and fifth grade students would often ask if I were a boy or a girl. I always hedged, countered those questions with other questions like, Well, what do you think? And when they said, You dont really seem like a boy or a girl, I just smiled and told them that they were smart.

Many students came to me with their own gender dilemmas. Some of them were as simple as needing to talk about how they didnt want to have long hair, even though they were girls. And some of them were as complex as wondering what it meant that they were a boy with a crush on a boy. I was not perfect as a teacher, but I think my students knew they could come to me, not for answers, but for acceptance.

If HB466 passes, those conversations which are often crucial to a students well-being would become illegal.

Basically, this legislation will codify an already unspoken process of gaslighting trans kids out of existence, Augistina Johnson, a 27-year-old organizer with the Real Name Campaign, a grassroots trans advocacy organization in New Orleans, tells me.

That is something I experienced as a kid, where I grew up in New Orleans, Johnson says. But instead of scaring her out of resistance, Johnsons experience as a trans youth in Louisiana made her into an activist. I can relate. My own experiences as a queer educator combined with giving testimony and talking to others at the hearing inspired me to connect with people who are committed to protecting queer youth in Louisiana.

How can any trans person stay in school if youre going to literally force us out? Johnson wonders.

Ed Abraham, a 28-year-old organizer also with the Real Name Campaign, commiserates. We deserve more than to just survive, he says. Not killing ourselves doesnt have to be what trans success looks like. Abraham cites some of the harsh realities that LGBTQ+ youths face: anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and the risk of dropping out of school.

Unfortunately, there arent many statistics on how many LGBTQ+ students drop out of school, but research does give us a startling glimpse into the mental health challenges that queer youth are dealing with. According to The Trevor Project, 45% of the 34,000 LGBTQ+ youth surveyed attempted suicide in 2022. Fewer than 1 in 3 participants in the study felt they had a supportive home environment.