The Anna-Jonesboro Community High School, a high school located in the southern tip of Illinois, has garnered national attention after a group of students formed an “Anti-Queer Association.” The group also began circulating a survey among students questioning if LGBTQ students should be allowed to use the bathroom alongside heterosexual students.
NBC News reports faculty at Anna-Jonesboro high found out about the survey last week. In it, the Anti-Queer Association poses the options of “Yes, I want queers to go in the bathroom,” or ” No, I don’t want queer kids to go to the bathroom with us normal people.” Already queer rights groups have begun to criticize the school, though local administrators have assured the public an investigation into the survey is underway.
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“We began investigating. We’re still investigating. At this point in time, I really can’t give any information regarding any individuals or discipline measures,” said school Superintendent Rob Wright. “But, I can tell you that this type of harassment is taken very seriously and will not be tolerated. And once the investigation is complete, the appropriate discipline will take place where warranted.”
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Michael Coleman, a director for the Rainbow Cafe LGBTQ Center in nearby Carbondale, Illinois, also expressed his outrage. “My understanding is that it was an association that was brought upon the students and a parent that’s cosigning for it that made the Anti-Queer Association, basically trying to repeal the Keep Youth/Children Safe Act,” Coleman said. “Basically stating that we are supposed to have inclusive bathrooms for those who are transgender or non-binary or non-conforming.”
Coleman further encouraged queer students at Anna-Jonesboro high as well as members of the school’s Anti-Queer Alliance to visit the Rainbow Cafe LGBTQ Center, both to feel safe, and to learn more about how surveys like the one in question harm LGBTQ students.
The Anti-Queer Alliance and its survey at Anna-Jonesboro high is just the latest example of queer students under attack from their classmates in a number of American high schools. Earlier this year, a teen suffered a beating at the hands of classmates for carrying the pride flag to school. Also, in September, a group of students at a Florida school defaced the pride flag and attacked members of the school’s gay-straight alliance.
GentlemanCaller
Doesn’t the school have to approve new student organizations and activities by students? Never mind–as a former Illinoisian I know that Southern Illinois is basically Kentucky or Tennessee.
Hank31
The Equal Access Act of 1984 requires schools to allow all extra-curricular clubs in high schools, without discriminating based on content. There are exceptions if the club engages in criminal acts or disrupts school operations, but it cannot be banned because it is offensive to others. This is the same federal law which has allowed GSAs to form even in the most conservative school districts.
So long as the Anti-Queer Alliance does not engage in violence or rules violations and is focused on fighting “queer” ideology and legislation which allows transgender abuse of single-sex spaces, it should fall within the protection of the law. As I note below, LGB kids should join and take it over from the homophobes, since LGBs are the primary victims of “queer” ideology.
Cam
@Hank31
Nice try, but the Act doesn’t cover a group that is solely organized to attack other students, and it is interfering with the free excursive of the other student’s school day by trying to prevent them from having access to the bathrooms at school.
You Russian trolls always mess up when you try to talk about American laws.
kish
School clubs usually require a faculty sponsor. This is not an official school activity, but terrifying none the less.
Hank31
“Queer” is an anti-gay construct. Thus the Anti-Queer Alliance should be pro-gay. Given the chuckleheads who started it, the AQA is probably not being true to its pro-gay mission. LGB students should join up, take it over, toss out the phobes and fight “queer.”
Kangol2
Miss Thing, you’re on a site called QUEERTY. Give your hobbyhorse a rest, please!
Cam
The straight right wing troll wants to come in and talk about what Queer means. LOL
Dymension
Kangol2, Miss Thing, the whole point of the word queer was that it meant “strange.” Just because you “reclaim” the word and dress it up doesn’t take away its original meaning.
Kangol2
Dymension, Miss Thang, you are posting on a site called Queerty, not Gayety or GayLesbianety, etc. “Queer” in its fuller, newer meaning is baked into the DNA of this site and the topics it covers. Queer encompasses gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, etc. these days, while not being limited to them, and vice versa. This isn’t rocket science, and you don’t need a degree in Gay and Lesbian–or Queer–Studies to grasp this!
The Anti-Queer Association at this school has no love for queer people, gays or lesbians, trans people, or anyone who is not hetero–heterosexual or heteronormative. If you can’t grasp this and are stuck on antiquated meanings of the word “queer,” I’m not sure you’ll ever grasp it.
kish
“Queer” refers to anything that deviates from the norm. When the norm is the heteronormative patriarchy, I’ll take being queer. Read a book.
Imjustsaying
I’m sure you will find the leader hiding deep in the back of his closet.
Jon in Canada
Hmmm, the school seems a bit lackadaisical about it, so I have to wonder what their reaction would have been to an Anti-POC Association? I suspect they’d be on that in a hot minute. Then again, it is Illinois.
danemichael
Please know that this part of Illinois is prime KKK, marry your kin part of Southern Illinois. The only things, other than teeth, they lack is brain cells. It is sad and pathetic, but so is Anna-Jonesboro.