In March 2017, a lesbian student came out to Nicholas Breiner, a choral teacher at J.B. McNabb Middle School in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and said her parents didn’t approve of her sexual identity.
Shortly thereafter, the student attempted suicide. Luckily, the student’s friend notified Breiner as soon as she read the suicide note, and police were able to intervene in time to stop the student from killing herself, but the incident left Breiner shook.
Breiner is bisexual, but he’d never come out to any of his students. Reflecting on her attempted suicide, he asked himself:
“If she knew long before that I, a teacher she liked and had a good relationship with, knew exactly what she was feeling, would she have gotten to that point? It’s impossible to know but, with the possibility that I could save even a single life, I could no longer ethically stay in the closet. I needed to value my students’ safety and well-being over my own privacy.”
He then went onto his Instagram and came out in a (now deleted) post which said:
”I honestly never intended to come out. I’ve known I was bi for years but, as far as I was concerned, that was nobody’s business but my own. It’s something I have never pursued and, honestly, likely never will. A couple of weeks ago, however, I was working with a person who was struggling. This was partially due to their orientation. I felt that they needed to know there was someone in the room that understood and supported them, regardless of who they were. As terrifying as it was to admit, I had to value someone else’s well-being over my own privacy. After a lot of support from people I decided that 30 years was long enough to wait. Hey world, I am what I am.”
The day he returned to school, administrators sent a fellow teacher to monitor his class. Afterwards, he was sent to the principal’s office and told to keep his “sexual preferences” private from students, lest parents think he was challenging students’ religious beliefs.
A month and a half later, District Superintendent Matthew Thompson wrote him a letter stating that his contract with the school wouldn’t be renewed because “of his teaching technique, lack of classroom management and that he failed to post grades in a timely manner.”
But administrators had never provided any documentation showing that these were ongoing concerns. As such, Breiner was released at the end of the school year and he filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school.
Related: Son of famous singer says he was inundated with x-rated pics from strangers after coming out as bi
However, only 10 cities in Kentucky have laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination—in the rest of the state, it’s completely legal to discriminate against someone for being LGBTQ. So he lost his case.
Nevertheless, he’s appealing the case to a higher court, confident that federal laws forbidding sex discrimination should prevent him for being fired just for loving people of the same gender.
Breiner says he has intervened in 17 other cases of queer students having emotional difficulties with their identities. Now that he’s gone from the school, those students are missing someone to turn to: a concerned teacher whose care could save their lives.
Vince
Wow. This is the end result of the BS religious freedom. The Florist and bakers was a Pandora’s box.
ModeI
I agree, a strange situation!
drewthemoviefan
So are straight teachers also not allowed to reveal whether they are straight or not, lest the kids find out their sexual preferences?
@AndrewB12
Absolutely agree withyou. Very strange situation
Kieran
Gay people find themselves legally unprotected from being fired because of their sexual orientation, but the GLBT movement has already moved on to demanding transexual potty rights as priority # 1.
Myles
I don`t think its a fair thing to be trashing the real and very dangerous reality transgender people are facing, people are being violently attacked, harassed, raped and in some cases killed for going to the bathroom. For a moment just think about how that would feel.
The LGBT+ community is not neglecting other harmful issues such as LGBT+ rights protection and your statement is demeaning to the work many LGBT+ members are putting in for the fight for protecting and obtaining rights for all members of the community.
The only #1 priority is having LGBT+ rights recognized, protected and practiced in society and law. There is simply a growing attention to the transgender and gender non-conforming movement because historically that part of the community has been forgotten about or ignored. Transgender rights are not pushing the rights of LGB+ people away it is just being recognized and being held to the same standards of rights that is demanded for the rest of the community.
chris_clb614
No, “transsexual potty rights” was the conservative scare tactic employed to great success that killed Equal Rights Ordinances that included gender identity in the cities of Houston, TX and Charlotte, NC. Via the ballot, unfortunately.