It's back to school time just about everywhere, which I usually address with a cartoon about LGBTQ+ students. This year, I thought I'd draw something for teachers instead.
A bunch of Republican state legislatures are pushing bills forcing birth gender requirements on transgender persons against their obvious will. It's bound to cause difficulty for anyone who is an employee anywhere — intentionally so — and no less for transgender persons in the teaching profession.
I'm reminded of my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Grothe. She wasn't transgender, but she did have a few items in her classroom marked "Miss Carpenter," which I at first thought meant that they belonged to somebody else. It didn't take long to figure out that Miss Carpenter was her maiden name, and that those things had always belonged to Mrs. Grothe.
Most kids are brighter than you might suspect.
It won't take Mr. Newman's students long to figure out that he used to be Miss Smith in another life, whether he teaches kindergarten or advanced placement calculus.
His state representatives might take considerably longer to realize that his coworkers may not appreciate Mr. Newman being required to use the women's bathroom, and that he would rather not intrude there, anyway.
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