Considering what it took to get protections for Gay kids in schools, 12 years showed there had been no harm and the move was correct

     Whenever the needs of GLBT students come up, the major rationale offered for objecting to their full inclusion in school policies and programs is because to openly include them in school policies would open a Pandora’s Box of frivolous lawsuits as students and parents would take advantage of the opportunity to make a lot of money by filing complaints about the most minor inconveniences in the name of equality, and that GLBT students would somehow disrupt the school system by demanding special treatment and control of all activities and programs.

     This was often accompanied by claims that openly including GLBT students into full standing as students would bring on religious persecution and Christianity would be thrown under the oppressive heel of some sort of Gay take-over of society as we know it.

     The only way to avoid chaos is to stay with the status quo because, obviously, the predictions of horror were well founded, and nothing has contradicted them.

     That was the thought and in a way the hope that the bad things would come to fruition and the objectors would be proven right, and winning was more important in this case than education

     Things went a different way.

     There is undeniable proof, however, that recognizing students as who they are will not destroy schools, districts, or the whole education system if not society as well, and this did not come from the expected places like the East and West Coasts where the liberal elite live and such open mindedness is expected, but from the Heartland where it isn’t.

     And there is a definite line of demarcation separating the way it was and the way it became, and none of the negative predictions showed up in the after, just as they had not been in the before.

     Because of timing, the students in the Oklahoma City Public Schools District who entered the first grade in 2010 and are about to graduate in May of 2022 will be the first class in that city and the whole state of Oklahoma to have gone through all twelve grades of public school with “Sexual Orientation and “Gender Identity” in school policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination, and nowhere in those twelve years did the predicted end of the world even hint at taking place.

     As a matter of fact, while the benefits of making schools safe and welcoming for all students became more obvious as did the emptiness of the excuses to allow some students to be denied full standing in the district, the district later during those twelve years added to its policy language making it more inclusive.

     It’s Student/Parent Handbook now clearly states,

“The Oklahoma City Public School District (OKCPS) does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, alienage, veteran, parental, family and marital status in its programs and activities, or in its employment decisions, and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts of America and other designated youth groups.”

     Not among the “elites” but in the heartland, rather than remaining entwined in speculation and assumptions, there is proof that accepting and respecting students’ Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression does not bring about all the exaggerated excuses used to limit the full involvement of GLBT students in education and school activities because of who they are or the fear that allowing their full participation will somehow bring about conditions which has been shown to be not the case.

     Beyond speculation, when those who go after GLBT students to deny them an equal education and involvement in school activities, clubs, and sports in a safe and welcoming environment which by law they must attend every day, especially the Trans kids who are victimized by ignorance, bigotry, and politics, present them with this factual example of reality that shows how wrong they were and continue to be and ask for an equally factual and relevant example to support their claim.

     When the Oklahoma City Public Schools added “sexual Orientation” the district joined those many districts all over the country who had already done that. But when it also included “Gender Identity”, aware of it or not, it joined an extremely small number of school districts nationally that had done that leaving the rest to catch up.

     They led, and that act of leadership has proven to have been the right thing to do as was ignoring the groundless speculation of the naysayers who have been proven wrong.

     Now after the first class has gone the full twelve-year span of a public-school career and all the others are following behind, the district might also not be aware that they are the proof against the arguments to exclude and discriminate for political, religious, or personal reasons.

     Even within the district, its own past arguments that there would be a cause-and-effect situation if it chose to protect GLBT students was disproven as the predicted effect never materialized.

     You have your comeback to the unreasonable claim and the unreasonable fear it is based on which cannot be dismissed not only because of what happened and how long the proof was being accumulated, but where it happened, in the Heartland in the Buckle of the Bible Belt.

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