Last year, after a student gifted Daggett a coffee mug that read “Ask me my pronouns,” the influential anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok found and shared a photo of Daggett posing with the mug, which caused an uproar among some viewers who took issue with Daggett encouraging students not to make assumptions about someone’s gender. “(We) can’t even focus on what we’re teaching because we’re just trying to defend our rights to be in a classroom.” “For us queer teachers right now, it’s almost brave to show up,” he said. And though he maintains his optimism in the classroom with his young students, the reality of being a gay teacher in a political climate that’s become increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ people can be much more challenging, even dangerous, he said. An elementary school instructor in the Milwaukee area, Daggett regularly shares clips of his students enthusiastically performing chants to learn about punctuation marks and suffixes, along with other tips he’s used as a literacy teacher. And while many queer educators are using the attacks as fuel to keep going, the harassment some LGBTQ teachers have faced is driving some of them to leave the field entirely.įirst grade teacher Jake Daggett is a reliably smiling face among instructors with large Instagram followings. ![]() ![]() Knowing their presence in a classroom is a matter of debate can make it even harder to continue their work in a profession already plagued by stagnated pay, concerns about safety and major labor shortages. These laws don’t just minimize LGBTQ history or prevent classroom conversations with students about what it means to be queer and trans: LGBTQ educators who spoke to CNN said these bills, regardless of whether they’re passed in one’s home state, start to chip away at their confidence and comfort in a classroom.
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