Weekly meetings of the Gen-
der-Sexuality Alliance, the
Affinity Mentorship class,
presentations on microaggressions, ASB
Social Justice Liaisons, a Pride flag fly-
ing high in front of the school — Pied-
mont has worked to grow over the past
couple of years to provide more inclusive
initiatives for transgender and queer stu-
dents. But with the reelection of Presi-
dent Trump and nationwide opposition to
LGBTQIA+ rights becoming increasingly
prevalent, many queer Piedmont students
have felt a sense of decreased inclusivity
in their community and increased fear for
their futures.
Immediately following President
Trump’s inauguration in January, several
executive orders were issued regarding
the rights of queer individuals. According
to PBS, these actions have ranged from
placing restrictions on federal gender
markers, curtailing gender-affirming care,
and limiting trans athletes’ participation
in sports. With opposition to trans rights
continuing to emerge on both a legislative
and social level, concern for the lasting
impacts of the president’s decisions has
risen among genderqueer students.
“I feel like I’ve gotten from a lot of peo-
ple, ‘Oh, it’s just four years, all you have
to do is wait out four years and then it’s
gonna be fine’,” trans male sophomore
Luke said. “But irreversible damages can
happen in four years.
Trans people don’t
have the luxury of just
waiting it out for four
years.”
For many, the treat-
ment of queer issues
as matters of political
talking points comes
across as dismissive
of the real-world im-
plications these de-
cisions bear on their
lives and autonomy.
“If you’re queer, it’s
really hard to put poli-
tics aside, so to speak,
when the Republican
politics are fundamentally attacking our
ability to live. I can’t [move to] a state
that wants to ban my right to marriage,
where the majority of people that I walk
past think that I don’t deserve basic
American rights,” GSA president senior
Ella Hughes said.
PHS alum trans male Sohrab Ford said
despite going to a liberal college he wor-
ries about threats to queer students in
regards to budget cuts targeting the hu-
manities and the arts, places where Ford
says many queer and trans students are
concentrated.
“[I worry about the future in regards to]
everything from climate change to the
rising rates of depression among young
people and all of these different things.
So I think that transphobia is just like a
symptom of a bigger structural issue in
the way that the world kind of prioritizes
you,” Ford said.
Though these governmental shifts and
the threats to safety that they pose have
furthered some students’ decisions to
remain publicly closeted, other students
said they were inspired to demonstrate
more unapologetic expressions of their
identities in defiance of bigotry.
“It’s very sickening to see how much
a group that has done relatively nothing
is getting targeted so
much. Being a part
of that group, it’s
bitter, and it’s upset-
ting, [but] it makes
me want to be my-
self more, because if
I disgust someone so
much for simply ex-
isting, then I want to
see them disgusted
by me existing. It’s a
form of resistance, I
guess,” trans female
sophomore Marie
said.
Beyond high school,
some trans and gen-
derqueer students said evaluating ‘safety’
in certain regions of the country along-
side more typical criteria of ‘tuition fees’
or ‘acceptance rate’ is necessary when
constructing college application lists or
determining post-graduation plans.
Graphic by Clea Villaluz
“If you’re queer, it’s
really hard to put
politics aside, so
to speak, when the
Republican politics
are fundamentally
attacking our abili-
ty to live.”
Ella Hughes
GSA president
TPHMagazine CAMPUS 1 3
JJooiinn
PPiieeddmmoonntt’’ss
GGSSAA
Wednesdays
in Room 31
@piedmont_high_gsa
“I have my college spreadsheet, and at
the top it says ‘we will be blacklisting
Texas and most Southern states’. There
are some very good schools for my in-
tended major in the South which I have
struck off the list specifically because
of my queer identity
and the threat I feel
like those places pose
because of it,” said
Chelsea, an upper-
classman at PHS who
identifies as a demi-
girl existing on the
agender spectrum.
Luke said he shared
a similar experience,
clarifying universi-
ties’ support for gay
students as not nec-
essarily extending to
trans ones. He cited
housing guidelines,
the presence of administrative support
systems, and communities’ political
alignments as especially impactful on his
decisions.
“I have a lot of the country just off-lim-
its, as a trans person. Obviously it really
depends on the school — a lot of schools
have a queer culture, but having a queer
culture doesn’t necessarily mean having
a trans culture or being very accepting
towards trans people — I’d say [that’s]
probably the number-one thing that
goes into account when I’m looking at
schools,” Luke said.
Despite Piedmont’s diversity initiatives
on campus being valued for the critical
education they pro-
mote, some students
outside of the gender
binary said they felt
Piedmont’s largely
white and non-gen-
derqueer student body
can contribute to feel-
ings of ostracization.
“My experience in
Piedmont is often
characterized by a
kind of intersectional
discrimination — as
somebody who falls
into those boxes of
what is considered the
‘correct’ way to be queer, I am fine being
out, but everyone around me is not priv-
ileged enough to have the presentability
politics fall in their favor,” Hughes said.
“Piedmont is generally socially liberal
in appearance, but whenever it comes to
how people treat each other at the schools,
presentability is everything, almost above
humanity.”
Ford said something he learned goingthrough Piedmont as a trans person was
when someone says something transpho-
bic or racist, whether intentional or not,
he can interact with that person more
charitably after considering the beliefs
that person has grown up with that have
led them to say hurtful words.
“I think the main thing that I learned at
Piedmont is that everyone’s coming from
somewhere,” Ford said.
Additionally, Ford said this mindset is a
way to create growth for bigoted people.
“If we acknowledge that [transphobia
and hate] comes from somewhere, then
we can actually address it, versus if we
just say that people are bigoted and that’s
the way they are, then we can’t do any-
thing about it. That doesn’t help us in any
way,” Ford said.
Many trans students identified a will-
ingness to educate themselves and decon-
struct internalized cisnormativity as ini-
tiatives their non-queer classmates could
take to become better allies.
“It’s always good to be more well-in-
formed, especially when it comes to other
people’s identities,” Chelsea said. “If you
respect someone as a person, that means
respecting the parts of them that maybe
you don’t understand and maybe you will
not ever fully understand, because that
isn’t your experience, but you should at
least try.”
