Northwest Waukee senior Naomi Pittman has heard classmates complain about some of the new rules that may seem innocuous but were crafted to target LGBTQ students in Iowa.
“With the name laws, people don’t realize the point of it. They don’t realize that it’s trying to hurt trans kids,” said Naomi, president of their school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). “They don’t see that we’re the people being attacked by this. And so they’ll be like, ‘Oh, this nickname thing is so stupid.’ But they don’t turn around and realize who it’s hurting the most.”
The GSA’s goals this year is to raise awareness about anti-LGBTQ laws for other students—LGBTQ or otherwise—and being there to provide a support system for students who are harmed.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet, that’s the thing,” Naomi said. “I think as we get farther along it’ll hit them more.”
All of this is because of the implementation of SF 496, a Republican-backed bill that requires schools to out students to their parents if they request accommodations for a gender identity that hasn’t been approved by the parents.
The law also bans books for “depictions of sex acts,” no matter how brief, vague, or the overall contents of the book, and bans instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten to grade six.
The GSA hosted an event called Pride Outside at Northwest Waukee High School on Sept. 16. Food trucks, a DJ, face-painting, and other booths welcomed people and more booths inside helped spotlight resources and education about the LGBTQ community.
The purpose was to focus on the joy but also to connect GSAs in the metro area and to make a statement.
“It’s something we can do to show legislators and our state that we’re here. We’re not going to listen to your rules,” said Northwest Waukee senior Brett Giltner, the vice president of the GSA.
The event was funded by a grant from the It Gets Better Project, a nonprofit started to support LGBTQ youth. The grants were for student-led projects meant to uplift LGBTQ youth.
Northwest Waukee was the first Iowa school to receive a grant and the students said they hope more GSAs apply and do their own projects.
Brett said this political environment has been especially strange for him. He moved to Iowa from Illinois last year, just as Illinois expanded education about LGBTQ identities, and went further to protect those students from discrimination.
“It’s like you cross an imaginary line and it’s like you’re allowed to be yourself here [in Illinois] and you’re not allowed to do this anymore here [in Iowa],” Brett said.
It’s been a stark difference, but he said he got a lot of help adjusting when he found and joined the school’s GSA.
At the time, Brett didn’t realize he was a member of the LGBTQ community but the GSA was a welcoming place full of people who were fun to be around. The friends he made helped him adjust to a new school and a new political environment.
Brett and Naomi said the GSA is a vital place for students to feel accepted, especially if they can’t get that support at home.
“We just have to continue to be here for people,” Naomi said. “We’re doing our best to schedule so that everyone can come because sometimes people just need a place to come and chat.”
They said they’ll also be able to help students who need help navigating the changes from SF 496 while they continue being a support and somewhere students can relax.
Brett said the group can also do more than the administration can, though he acknowledged the administration has been supportive so far, even with the limitations imposed by the new law.
“Teachers have to follow the law. We don’t,” he said. “We can always be there to support our students when our teachers potentially can’t, even though they want to. So that’s the nice thing about having a GSA at the school and having a pretty decent-sized GSA.”
Naomi said in times like this it’s important to focus on and embrace the joy in life as part of the LGBTQ community.
“A lot of the times our history is littered with a lot of pain and difficulty, but learning about us—about who we were, who we are now—can help fill us with pride,” Naomi said. “We meet people who are like us, we can connect and just be able to exist as humans, even when other people aren’t allowing us to be who we are.”
Nikoel Hytrek
9/26/23
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