Last week a public elementary school in IL suddenly canceled a virtual visit with Jarrett Dapier, the author of Mr. Watson’s Chickens (which I illustrated). As I understand it, the school was concerned that inviting an author to read a book that centers queer characters would result in a homophobic backlash. The administration is currently working with Jarrett to reschedule. I want to talk about what’s happening because it’s larger than our one book and this one school.
This is happening as part of the vicious and organized attacks on schools against LGBTQIA2+ people - as creators, as characters, as students and teachers, as human beings. It’s part of a bigger and focused movement trying to erase the voices of LGBTQIA2+ folks and people of color in schools. These attacks frighten school administrators into preemptively doing the anti-LGBTQIA2+ movement’s hateful work. This school has been terrorized into choosing who to appease and who to sacrifice.
But hate can’t be appeased.
This is bigotry at work. This is wrong. This is harmful. Homophobia and transphobia hurt everyone they touch, but especially threaten LGBTQIA2+ folks by getting people to act as if our essential humanity is in some way debatable, inappropriate or dangerous. Censoring queer content doesn’t make us exist any less, but it does turn us into targets.
We have the right to exist in our stories, survive in our neighborhoods, and be safe in our schools. Whose stories get told and whose stories are silenced shows who can live openly and who has to hide. It certainly shows students and teachers who their community is willing and unwilling to protect.
If you think it’s not happening in your community, I want to say: this fight is everywhere and this fight is now. If bigots are loud, we all have to be even louder and bigger and bolder in asserting that LGBTQIA2+ people are people. Your teachers and schools need your support in affirming this and holding the line against hate, because they can’t do it alone.
