Meet Ann Ennis. She’s a school board member from Evansville, Indiana who doesn’t give AF about preventing trans students from committing suicide.
At an Evansville-Vanderburgh County School Corporation meeting last week, a group brought up the needs of LGBTQ students.
According to Trevor Project’s National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, more than half of trans and non-binary young people have seriously contemplated suicide.
When members from the Tri-State Alliance, an LGBTQ organization that serves communities in southeastern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky, brought this up and asked for greater protections for queer students, Ennis said no additional protections were being considered.
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In a video posted to the group’s Facebook page, Tri-State Alliance President Wally Paynter can be heard calling out Ennis for being transphobic.
She replies by making an animated gesture as though she’s playing a violin then says, “Cry me a river!”
“Oh, cry us a river about the kids that have died?” one person pushes back. To which Ennis offers no response other than storming out the door.
The Advocate reports:
Evansville is about three hours southwest of Indianapolis. Currently, the district bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but not on gender identity.
Current policy also requires students to use the bathroom corresponding with the gender they were assigned at birth. In June, a judge ruled that the district had violated a trans student’s rights by preventing him from using the boys’ bathroom and disciplining him if he tried.
Since the video went viral, a Change.org petition has begun circulating calling for her to be removed from the board.
Related: “I really felt bullied,” says antigay school board member who opposes anti-bullying initiatives
maleficent
it’s unfortunate all-round. surely she is not a hateful person. more will come out.
Cam
So you’re both sides-ing bigotry and it’s victims? And please, by all means, feel free to explain why you say she isn’t a hateful person.
joelk57
Ann Ennis , you and your kind are what is wrong in this world today. Attempting to hide behind the Bible, the Bible that I grew up with and it’s Southern Baptist says your behavior is abhorrent and should be ashamed of your heathen like assertions. GOD will judge you more harshly than anyone you could ever pass your pathetic opinion of.
joelk57
And as far as the Board member who says they felt bullied for their opposition to Anti Gay bullying initiatives…I’ll use Ann Ennis’s prophetic words” Cry me a River” Get over your pathetic self.
Joshua333
At least we know no one will cry her a river when she dies
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Showing no empathy, celebrating a CHILD driven to suicide….
Once again there is a special dark corner in Hell where this abhorrent noxious crunt will writhe in never ending torturous agony for all eternity…
maleficent
hope she gives an interview…. she cannot be that shallow.., I could be wrong
globeguy
This video is BOGUS. Thirteen seconds does NOT allow you to see the context of her reply, which was NOT in reply to the issue of trans students or suicides—it was because they would not listen to her, but instead just called her “transphobic”. She’s a GLBT ally, and has donated a lot of money to the organization that is now spreading this misinformation.
I know her personally, AND I know the president of Tri-State Alliance. He’s a pariah in the local GLBT community because of his history of lies, deception and unethical behavior. NONE of the other GLBT/AIDS groups will work with him or his group because of his history. He lost his job at the county health department for disclosing the HIV status of his clients. He’s been involved in shady financial issues, and when questioned about them, he’s engaged in character assassination and spread lies about the person. He’s been accused by several people of inappropriate behavior with underage members of the group. He is not to be trusted about this or anything else.
Rock-N-RollHS
Interesting. Would have liked more context, although violin playing not a good look or message in any case.
Confrontational woman almost called her a “bitch,” clearly, but probably realized video would not have been post-able. Lol.
Hdtex
I call BULLSHIT to your comment.
Cam
Except you blurted out a bunch of information and couldn’t provide any proof for it. She is on video…..can’t change that, so try distraction.
But how interesting that your way of defending a supposed bigot is to do just what a bigot would want….attack “The Gays”.
jayceecook
This seems, at the moment, to be an example of, “We need more context.” Reading some other articles on this it appears this group regularly attends thier meetings and are very disrespectful to the board members and the process of how the meetings are run. They try to abuse the system to hog all the speaking time that is allotted to the community members to voice concerns and ask questions. They have protested the decision to limit how many members from thier group can sign up to speak which resulted in them getting SIX members on the list. If you know anything about these meetings that is a ridiculous amount of people who are no doubt going to hog up the time by saying the same thing and asking the same questions.
Ann Ennis is the one who confronted the group after the meeting, no doubt to chastise thier actions, and the group got hostile. Now I’m not saying her violin hand gesture and comment were 100% appropriate, but it is very likely aimed at the group members themselves (for thier behavior) and not the issue of trans students’ safety.
Time will tell but this short clip is not enough to make a 100% informed opinion on the matter. Had the group filmed everything from the moment they arrived to when they left and posted it, that would be a different story. But I’m tired of people and groups cherry picking small moments of video and posting it on social media as thier “proof”.
Cam
There certainly are a lot of accounts springing up here to make accusations with no proof as a defense for this woman.
rustyiam
Cancel culture is evil and needs to be irradiated immediately and no that doesn’t mean I support any isms!
Cam
Translation: The right wing troll account doesn’t like it when bigots get called out.
jayceecook
@Cam I’m not a “new account”. I have been commenting here for a while now. Go back through Queerty’s articles and you’ll find comments I’ve made. I just don’t that often. There are a bunch of reasons for that. People like you are one of them. Everybody has a limit to the number of idiots and trolls they can deal with on the internet. Queerty isn’t exactly known for its high quality posts and the same goes for its commenters.
jayceecook
@Cam Also, I’m not defending her or her actions. I’m calling into question the context in which they happened as well as the fact that today’s culture is so quick to condemn people with the flimsiest of “evidence”. I even said in my original comment her actions and words were not 100% appropriate.
Tombear
And we wonder why school shootings happen?