According to recent statistics, persons in the LGBTQ community make up over 10 percent of our population. Surveys of the LGBTQ community report that close to 50% have contemplated suicide before turning 25.
I cannot believe we are still debating if we should be educating our children in accepting each other regardless of race, religion, appearance, or sexual orientation. I cannot believe we don’t all want a better future for our children where they can all fulfill their dreams and exceed our expectations.
Yet, sadly, here we are in Great Neck, as Board of Education candidate Emil Hakimi has stridently centered efforts to exclude other LGBT children in his hateful campaign.
I am dismayed by Emil’s videotaped comments from an event last week, which threaten to roll back the hard-won acceptance LGBT students have found in our Great Neck schools and demonstrate a dangerous misunderstanding about LGBT identity.
In the clip, Emil tells the crowd that “my concerns recently have become the gender identity politics shown in schools. This is confusing for kids. They’re not at the age where they can make such a drastic decision in their life.
G-d forbid one of these kids goes without consulting their parents and having healthy interaction in their family life but rather a teacher directing them or confusing them to go make a proclamation that’s irreversible.
This gender identity politics needs to be kept out of our schools. It’s not transphobia, this is family values. Families, parents need to be involved in such a drastic decision.”
As the proud parent of an LGBT child who graduated from our public schools last year, I’m here to respond to Emil directly: your ‘family values’ are not mine – on the contrary, your close-mindedness and bigotry (and the flagrant transphobia you deny), are harmful to my family.
In contrast to Emil’s harmful framing, having an LGBT identity is not a ‘decision’ someone makes. As parents, we can do no more to change our child’s sexual identity than we can the color of their skin or eyes. And why would we want to?
We, as parents, know that we must foster a sense of acceptance, tolerance, individuality, and independence in our children if we want them to grow up to be the best version of themselves. But how can we do this if we don’t educate them and don’t give them a place in our school system?
Accepting teachers don’t ‘confuse’ kids into embracing who they know they are – they save lives. Research has found that LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to experience stress and fear in school than their non-LGBTQ+ peers.
Particularly when intolerant parents with views like Emil’s believe that their children’s orientation or identity is a ‘decision’ that parents can change, the presence of an accepting teacher is critical to support their mental health and self-esteem and prevent the feelings of suicide 50% of LGBT youth report to experience.
We are lucky to have such teachers in Great Neck. Emil threatens their jobs if they continue to foster inclusive classrooms and support our children.
When Emil says that “gender politics needs to be kept out of our schools,” he says he wants children like mine to check their identities at the door, which of course they cannot and should never do.
Rather, parents like me who care about our schools accepting and supporting all our children must make sure that bigots are kept off of our school board.
We are seeing a national trend that aims to take away the rights of women and the LGBTQ community. Who you vote for matters. Donna Peirez supports quality public education for ALL students. Please don’t sit this one out on Tuesday, May 17. We, as a community, must do better for our children.
Diana Rozenblum
Great Neck