Seattle Trans Students Have a Message: We Just Want to Be Young People

by Ari Robin McKenna

On Sept. 27, a spirited crowd packed the SoDo auditorium where Seattle's school board meetings are held. Word had circulated that anti-trans activists were signed up to speak. Trans students, their allies, and the adults raising them were in attendance, and a showdown of sorts took place.

Though this was the first time in 2023 that anti-trans activists spoke at a Seattle Public Schools (SPS) board meeting, they have become a mainstay at board meetings throughout the state and across the country. Their presence nationally has accompanied a bevy of attempts to restrict or outlaw gender-affirming curricula in schools, with over 230 bills submitted this year alone. Similar bills that cut off access to gender-affirming care, when passed, have caused families of trans youth to migrate to bluer states, like Washington.

The last person to give public testimony at the meeting was Luna Crone-Barn, a trans senior at Nathan Hale High School and the first openly trans student board director of SPS. Speaking virtually, Crone-Barn addressed attendees who villainize trans youth: "I want to say …" Crone-Barn paused, then found her voice. "I wish you love. I wish you more love in your life."

The 'Celebratory' Voice of a Former Student

It was stunning to see this student board director step into that conflict-charged moment and exercise such restraint, especially, perhaps, because she was a former student of mine. It made me wonder: How were she and trans students in the South End feeling about their school experiences, while this charged political conversation about their identity plays out nationwide?

So, the first person I reached out to was Crone-Barn.

When asked about her stirring testimony, she admitted to being angry as she addressed the anti-trans activists in the SPS auditorium, but she credited the movement for trans liberation for her temperance. "It's about creating more loving and celebratory spaces of difference," she said.

My video call with Crone-Barn brought back memories of 7th-grade Crone-Barn in our language arts classroom. Though I reminisced about how sharp, composed, and self-sufficient she had been, Crone-Barn clarified what I likely remembered was how she had, by then, already "been adultified." She described always feeling "on guard," wary of what peers and some adults might say about her identity while in school.

In 2015, when Crone-Barn was in elementary school, the U.S. Supreme Court ended state bans on same-sex marriage. That year, 19 anti-trans bills were passed in various states; fast forward to 2023, and that number has increased thirtyfold.

Yet even with the current national conflict over trans rights becoming ubiquitous, Crone-Barn is disappointed with how societal and educational discourses tend to play out. She said that even adults with the best intentions are often unprepared to hold space for trans students, and classmates she admires still say things like, "I respect trans people, but …"

In many cases, she said, the way the dialogue about trans issues is framed can be problematic. She pointed out that trans people are often grouped together as having one identity, marked by a sinister intention to prey on others, usurp women's restrooms, and upend sports to collect gold medals. "I feel like that whole argument, and a lot of these arguments," she said, "are just through-routes for people to feel safe to be transphobic."

Currently, Crone-Barn exists in the rift between policy and implementation. She is aware of and grateful for the well-intentioned words SPS still has on paper, and the "certain few people" on the school board who speak up and "center trans voices." But she continues to hear slurs hurled down the hallways of her high school. She describes her whole SPS experience as having an "insidious, underlying transphobia."

South End Trans Students Call for Action

A few days later, I spoke with three South End trans students on a video call. David, a trans student of color who asked that we identify them by a different name, said they'd like to see more trans and nonbinary-affirming curriculum in schools. Speaking softly, but with confidence, David said it would ease the responsibility of educating their peers, who regularly ask things like, "What is a they/them?"

"I guess they're curious, but that's kind of a weird way to put it. It feels a bit redundant to continuously talk about gender and sex — the difference between them," they said.

Understanding of trans issues hasn't nearly kept pace with the efforts to pass anti-trans legislation. For example, a 2022 Pew Research survey of U.S. adults found that 64% of respondents say they favor, or are strongly in favor of, protecting trans people from discrimination. Yet 60% of the surveyed group say a person's gender is solely based on the biological sex they were assigned at birth.

Art, a pseudonym for a Black trans student at a high school in South Seattle, also sees the disconnect that stems from how hushed these conversations have been in their educational setting. Speaking with purpose, they said, "The conversation needs to take place more often. It needs to take place when you're younger, because queer people are here, and we're not going anywhere!"

Becky (a pseudonym) is a trans student from a South End high school whose parents grew up in a country where LGBTQ+ people were denigrated. Their parents emigrated to the United States and, according to Becky, were not equipped to have the conversations Becky needed. Becky said this reality, combined with the lack of gender-affirming curriculum at school, meant they had to "over rely on the internet to find out who I really was."

Jaelynn Scott, the executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Black trans life, said anti-trans activists popping up in more progressive parts of the country shows the extent of their funding. This, combined with a slew of legislation being written, represents a "large, well-funded machine." Scott wonders how Washington State, which has two anti-trans bills in the state Legislature, and Seattle, will respond.

While heartened by those who turned out to support trans students at the September school board meeting, Scott said more of that energy is needed — and it must be well-directed. Though trans-affirming curriculum is vital, Scott points to a second way Seattlites can learn: by "getting out of their own way" and listening to "Black, queer, and trans people."

What Trans Students Want to Talk About

When the five anti-trans activists spoke at the September board meeting, it was in a rehearsed, authoritative manner. They clapped for each other in an otherwise silent auditorium, and they sought to make their arguments more appealing to the crowd. One described herself as a "left-winger."

They also asserted that gender-affirming surgery was harmful and that schools "secretly baptize students" into a gender ideology that, they claimed, was an "anti-science, child-harming, civil-rights-destroying, homophobia-elevating deception."

Yet their central premise — that SPS was imposing a transgender ideology on unwitting students — did not track with the four trans students I spoke with, all at the tail end of their K—12 education.

While anti-trans activists fear gender-affirming curriculum has gone too far, trans students disagree: They believe the curriculum hasn't gone far enough.

Art said that growing up in the South End as a gay, non-gender-conforming person who is also Black, people tend to react to them in one of two ways: "Oh, you're Black, and you're queer. That must be hard for you. You have so much on your shoulders," they said. Or, "You're Black, and you're queer. You have to be an activist!"

Even though Art identifies as an activist, they feel the burden and stress of being saddled with that belief.

Other trans students echoed similar experiences. They were wary of being cast as anything other than high-school students navigating the challenges and joys of their lives. They said this year has made that difficult.

So what would trans students rather be talking about, if they weren't being interviewed about the politicization of their identity?

"Cats are amazing," said David, who plays slow-pitch softball, wants to try fast-pitch softball, and plans to become a math teacher. "They're my favorite animal, and they are so misunderstood."

Becky, who swims and does digital fan art, said they'd rather talk about "what I'm into, what kind of music, games, books — just, like, my hobbies."

Crone-Barn loves books, theater, film, and writing short stories. "I love storytelling in all its forms!" she said. She intends to pursue a career that centers these long-held interests.

Art loves mechanical engineering and robotics and has played basketball for much of their life. They said they want to talk about "normal teenage stuff, apart from race and gender, like what boy I'm crushing on, or this YouTuber I've been watching … or a new musical instrument I just picked up. I just want to talk about my hobbies!"

Encouraged, perhaps, by the change in topic, Art waxed philosophical about the human condition, its complexity and contradictory nature.

"That's living. You make mistakes, you learn, you grow. Grow! Growing … you need to do that — especially when you learn new things," they said. "We gotta learn, we gotta adapt, and we gotta keep moving forward!"

Becky chimed in, deadpan, "Unfortunately, some people don't know how to do that."

📸 Featured Image: Photo via Carolina Jaramillo/Shutterstock.com