A middle school teacher in Texas has released a passioned op-ed calling for the end to a discriminatory law against LGBTQ instructors.
Geoffrey Carlisle penned the piece for the website EdSurge, detailing his own experience in the classroom as a gay teacher. Carlisle recalls the day one of his students asked “Mister, are you gay?”
Carlisle recalls his panic at the question. “When a 14-year-old student challenges you to reveal a part of yourself that you are obligated to hide,” he writes, “there’s a level of hesitancy that comes with that. My initial thought was to deflect and suggest this was a conversation for another time. But I remembered how frustrated I felt as a teenager growing up in the midst of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, desperately sifting through school, books, and media, hoping to find some glimmer of someone like me.”
“So,” Carlisle admits, “I responded, ‘Yes, I’m gay.'”
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The statement quickly became a pivotal moment in Carlisle’s life. The reason: Texas is one of four states to explicitly prohibit LGBTQ people from serving as public officials. The state added the law to the books in the 1990s as part of the Texas Health & Safety Code. Section 21.06 mandates that teachers and instructional materials “should include emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.”
Carlisle points out that homosexual conduct is no longer illegal since the landmark supreme court case of Lawrence v. Texas nullified anti-sodomy laws nationwide.
Related: Abortion, trans rights, now this: Texas is dead set on being the worst state ever
Still, given the attitude of hostility by the state, it should come as no surprise that sex education programs in the state even acknowledge non-heterosexual orientations.
For Carlisle, the antiquated laws need to change, not just for the benefit of queer teachers, but for the benefit of students as well.
“During my years in the classroom,” Carlisle says, “I’ve watched my LGBTQIA+ students navigate similar challenges: inadequate access to restrooms where they feel safe, teachers who allow homophobic and transphobic language in their classrooms to go unchecked, and bullying and harassment from their peers.”
“What’s most insidious about this law,” he contends, “is how far-reaching its impacts are while lurking just below the surface of awareness where most educators don’t know that it even exists. In the words of Elie Wiesel, ‘to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.’ So, an important part of my work has been raising awareness and advocating for the elimination of this law.”
Carlisle goes on to praise students in Texas that have staged a walkout after a school banned “safe space” stickers in classrooms. He also praises Trevor Wilkinson, a student that took the fight to his school board after his high school placed him on suspension for wearing nail polish.
To Carlisle, the greatest benefit of repealing the homophobic law in Texas will be for the students there. He recalls the student’s reaction when admitted to being gay in the classroom.
“Thank you for being honest! I’ve never heard a teacher admit that they were like me,” the student said, embracing Carlisle in a hug.
Now that’s a moment worth fighting for.
Update 11/23/21: An editor at EdSurge reached out to us to clarify Mr. Carlisle does not fear losing his job, despite the wording of the statute.
Cam
“Texas is one of four states to explicitly prohibit LGBTQ people from serving as public officials. The state added the law to the books in the 1990s as part of the Texas Health & Safety Code. Section 21.06 mandates that teachers and instructional materials “should include emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.””
Texas literally says LGBTQ people are criminals and shouldn’t be allowed to hold jobs. That’s why companies like Tesla where the owner said he agrees with Texas’s policies won’t get any business from me.
charette8596
Definitely agree with you on that one. What does one’s sexual orientation have to do with your job? What are the other 3 states?
Mack
@charette8596 I would bet it has to be a “red” state such as Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, maybe Georgia or Missouri. Those are the ones ran by politicians who shove their head up their backside when it comes to religious laws.
jayceecook
@charette8596 I think the other 3 states are Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.
TomG
I wish that Texas would just secede from the union, form their own nation, and make Trump their dictator ofr life. That seems to be what they want anyhow being as backwards socially as they are.
leo1008
There was, indeed, no federal job protection (that I know of) for gay people … until last year. In 2020, the Bostock v. Clayton County decision established for the first time that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay people from discrimination based on “sex.”
Seeing as how this is now the national standard established by the Supreme Court, I’m not certain why the Texas teacher is concerned about his job. Yes, he may well face discrimination or harassment from (some) of his idiot neighbors, but he cannot legally be fired because of his homosexuality (not anymore).
That Bostock decision was one of the most important developments in this country’s history when it comes to gay rights, I’m not certain I understand why it seems to remain relatively unknown.
MacAdvisor
In 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, the Supreme Court outlawed de jure discrimination in public schools. The movie Remember the Tigers takes place in 1971 telling the story of the integration of black high school and a white high school’s integration. That took place some 17 years after the Supreme Court made such segregated high schools illegal. Yet, an entire generation of Americans were raised in segregated schools, K-12, after the decision to eliminate such schools.
This teacher may not want to spend the time between getting fired and actually getting his job back as an unemployed school teacher. One of the plaintiffs in the Bostock decision, Donald Zarda, died without ever getting his job back. He was a skydiving instructor for Altitude Express who had told a female customer of his gay identity to make her more comfortable being attached to him during a skydive.
Winning a case doesn’t make up for the lost time. Talk to Nicholas Yarris, who served more than 21 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his release in 2003. Those 21 years are gone forever. I fully understand the teacher’s trepidation even if given he has a remedy.
leo1008
@MacAdvisor: your statement strikes me as more than a bit nihilistic. If you want to state that progress is often not linear, and that steps forward are often followed by backlashes, then yes, all that is true.
But simply discounting the value of Bostock v. Clayton county is absurd. It is one of the biggest advances of gay rights in America’s history. And the thing to do now is to make sure that it’s enforced and that gay teachers in Texas get the protection they are entitled to from this important Supreme Court decision (written by a conservative justice who was appointed by Trump).
The one thing we don’t want to do now is throw up our hands and resign ourselves to the inevitable bullying from everyone who would like to see Bostock v. Clayton county overturned .
MacAdvisor
I am not by any stretch slighting Bostock. It is an extremely important case and will make things better for millions. But the first few cases will provide greatly delayed relief to those the case should protect. To lose one’s job and go five, six, ten, or even longer until justice prevails is very hard to ask of an individual. The teacher is right to be concerned even if he wins.
jayceecook
@leo1008 I don’t know if Bostock vs CC would apply here because the law in Texas is a “no promo h0m0 law”.
cubcmh
Biden could fix this by issuing an executive order to the Dept of Ed to restrict federal funding to states that discriminate in this way.
leo1008
No need, we already have a Supreme Court decision preventing schools (or any other employer) from discriminating against teachers based on their sexuality: Bostock v. Clayton County. That decision really should be more widely recognized for the landmark progress it represents.
MacAdvisor
Actually, such an order would be unconstitutional. The funds are allocated with a set of instructions from Congress and adding such a fundamentally unrelated requirement would not fly. Bostock is a better answer.
jayceecook
@leo1008 I don’t know if Bostock vs CC would apply here because the law in Texas is a “no promo h0m0 law”.
cuteguy
This is 2021 right? The Dems need to get their act together before we start losing all our minimum human rights again. Look at how the Supreme Court was packed with conservative judges by that ugly turtle Moscow Mitch and the last prez Chump. We are all screwed if they don’t pack the courts now.
Hank31
Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund takes in millions of dollars in donations from gay people each year.
However, it has not challenged these obviously unconstitutional anti-gay laws in 4 states because it has more important matters to attend to. Such as where transgenders take a dump and making sure that males can compete in female sports.
Sanjo
There’s always one troll for every article.
Halfnhalf
Transgender is an adjective, not a noun or a verb or an adverb. Don’t just throw esses or ed’s on the end, actually accept that we are people. Not some alternate life form.
wooly101
I really liked the ending to the article.
Manray
Me too. The ending was great. Loved it. The kid who asked the teacher is going places. He knows who he is.
Jaquelope
This might seem a minor point, but this quote from the article looks like no copy checking was done: “… it should come as no surprise that sex education programs in the state even acknowledge non-heterosexual orientations.” Shouldn’t the word “not” be inserted between ‘even’ and
acknowledge’? It would make much more sense to read “… it should come as no surprise that sex education programs in the state even NOT acknowledge non-heterosexual orientations.”
You might think I’m a grammar n@zi, but I just feel that things must make sense in an article on this subject, and the way it was written seems to say the opposite of what it should mean.