Recently, there was an article in the news about a high school in Minnesota that adopted various laws and policies to "deal with" students that did not conform to strict definitions of gender and sexuality. Each policy they implemented produced increasingly disastrous results, but the school district refused to acknowledge the necessity of education over repression and avoidance. An alarmingly large chain of suicides within the district ensued, and officials still refused to take measures that could have dramatically reduced the problem, as a result of the area's prevalent conservativeness.
Reading the seven-page article was a shock to me. Having lived in a fairly liberal bubble in the Bay Area for much of my life, it had not occurred to me that a part of the very country we live in (whose core value happens to be personal liberty, no less) can be so averse to accepting gender non-normative behavior. The problem is much bigger than I had originally envisioned it, but the consequences of the current way society operates is horribly detrimental to a significant amount of its population. Changes must be made, but in order for anything to improve, someone has to take that frightening first step.
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