Dear Transgender Students of the Oklahoma City Public Schools:

I am sorry.

Oh, to be clear, I am no sorry for what I and the older members of our Community accomplished, but for what happened to what we did and how that has affected you, vis-a-vis, the disinterest of and abandonment by the rest of he Community who, since your rights were taken away in 2022 by the state legislature, has yet to take any action to get those rights back.

All the other stripes on the “Progressive Pride” flag, the flag where almost 1/4 of it is the complete Transgender flag while giving some others a stripe and others, like Naive Americans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders not even that, got to keep their rights, while the first group of people to have gotten their rights and then having them taken away are Transgender students and there has been nothing done to get those rights back.

So much for being so dominant on the flag. But it does add a pastel aspect to an otherwise primary color-heavy flag.

I have written to GLBT groups, both in the state of Oklahoma and a few national ones, asking why nothing has been done in the past 2 1/2 years to get the Trans students their rights back, and have yet to receive an answer with certain entities and individuals reached with a web page contact form responding only with an automatic acknowledgement of receipt showing they have received it.

“On December 14, 2009, the Oklahoma City Public schools added Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in school policies. Seven years later, having experienced nothing negative, the School Board added Gender Expression. In 2022, the Oklahoma State Legislature removed the rights of Trans students in OKC, ignoring the reality of OKCPS’s twelve years with no problems, a rather convincing case study. It has been 2.5 years since Trans students in OKC lost their rights and protections. I am inquiring as to what is being done to get those rights reinstated.”

The rest is silence.

If they were truly proud of their support of Trans adults and students they would be crowing about what they are doing and asking for donations off of that, but the silence in this case is deafening.

In 2022 I wrote a number of blogs on this and in both 2023 and 2024 when in OKC I asked what was being done and any answer, if given, was a simple, “Nothing”.

The Community may have salved its wounds and massaged its inner soul by making a recently murdered Trans student the Grand Marshal of the Pride Parade, so, apparently, all is good again and that took the place of getting the rights back.

The rights were not a gift. The district did not act in an enlightened, benevolent manner that had them embracing diversity as the local GLBT rag stated not long ago and after the loss of rights. The district was dragged kicking and screaming into it.

For twelve years the Board had been given a choice: Include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” because, as a school district, it was their moral obligation to care for the safety, well-being, and education of ALL students while at school or it would need to cover its butt since it could no plead ignorance of the need since they had been spoken to multiple times over the previous 12 years and supplied continually with reports, statistics, and up dated studies.

As was stated by Phil Hornig, when speaking in favor of the additional language on the night the school board voted to add the language, he had found that with the passage of the Matthew Shepherd act the board, as we had been telling them, had a legal liability if a parent or student filed a law suit related to bullying, harassment, or injury, both physical and mental, just as we had been warning them.

The reality is that they did not choose to add the language because it was best for the students but what was best for the district and that would be adding the words on paper even if they had no real intention to do the right thing.

After 8 years with no problems, with none of the predicted horrors coming about, the district added “gender expression” to school district student policies, but this evidence of no problem with inclusion, although obvious to the Board, was effectively ignored by those organizations claiming to have the interest of Transgender students at heart.

When the advocacy for students in the district was met with disciplinary action against a teacher for posting the names of famous GLBT Historical figures, two major national organizations refused any assistance because they deemed Oklahoma City too inconsequential to risk spending money on, but went with a similar case in a more popular state, and lost because where the similarity ended OKC would have won the case according to the judge’s decision. Although he did not mention OKC, he did state he would have ruled in favor of the Organizations had the details actually been what had happened in OKC.

Why was the 12 year case study, which began with first graders in 2010 and was completed by their graduation twelve years later in 2022 that showed that even in the Buckle of the Bible Belt inclusion caused no harm, ignored in favor of theory and boilerplate arguments presented in all those other cities and states that did not have such a positive case study?

And why after 2.5 years can no one say what is being done to get those rights back.

I get a lot of lectures from young people that come from the uninformed, usually based on the premise that as a cis-gender Gay, White male, I do not understand at my age what it is to be dealing with bigotry and prejudice. However, it was Boomers, who would never benefit from that for which they advocated, doing it so the future students would not have to deal with what was routine anymore.

The young who would benefit did not do it, they received it.

And sadly, those who received the rights have no problem with some of them losing them while they keep theirs.

How unified is the Community if all but the Trans people kept their rights with the rest not doing anything meaningful to get them back?

It shows a screaming lack of unity.

I have yet to hear from groups such as Freedom Oklahoma and the Gayly to which I have sent a number of letters and copies of the relevant blogs.

The question is simple:

What is actively being done to restore Trans-Student rights in Oklahoma City Public Schools.

In my experience, and there has been much, if people do not answer a question it is because there is no answer or the only one is “NOTHING”.

Why have Trans Students not gotten their rights back while the rest of the Progressive Flag are comfortable with still having their own?

Did they buy keeping their own rights by abandoning the Trans Kids?