75. Gender Support Plans for LGBTQ+ Students and How to Implement them in Your School

Are you curious about how educators are breaking barriers to support queer students in today's schools?

In this episode, we dive deep into the transformative work being done by Tommy Martin-Edwards (they/them), a queer non-binary Spanish teacher, who’s using their personal experiences to shape a more inclusive educational environment. Tommy shares their journey from a closeted student in the deep South to a trailblazing educator in California, and how their unique perspective has informed their approach to teaching and advocacy.

Through our conversation you will:

• Gain practical strategies for making schools more inclusive, such as incorporating queer history into the curriculum and offering gender-affirming resources like binders and shapewear.
• Understand the significance of creating supportive environments for queer students, including implementing gender support plans to ease their transition and ensure their comfort.
• Recognize the importance of addressing anti-queer behavior with a restorative justice approach, emphasizing understanding and empathy rather than just punishment.

Tune in now to discover actionable insights that can help create a more welcoming school environment for all students.

Transcript

Bryan (he/they): [00:00:00] Hey Tommy, how you doing today? 

Tommy (they/them): Doing well, and yourself? 

Bryan (he/they): I'm fantastic. I'm really excited to be able to spend some time with you. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to talk with me. Can you introduce yourself to everybody who's listening? 

Tommy (they/them): Hi, my name is Tommy Martin Edwards. I am a public school teacher in California.

My pronouns are they, them. I am a trans non binary teacher who teaches Spanish and a queer advisory class. I love that 

Bryan (he/they): so much. We're going to get more into that queer advisory class. Guaranteed. What was life like for you? 

Tommy (they/them): I grew up in the deep south in a time and a place where being queer wasn't really an option for anyone.

If it was more common, if you came out of the closet, you'd hear about people being kicked out of their homes. A lot of abuse would happen and stuff, so it wasn't really a safe place to, to come out. And so I lived until I was in college, just in the closet. 

Bryan (he/they): Just in the closet. Yeah, I think a lot of us have had that experience of Seeing what [00:01:00] the negative impact of coming out would be and then holding off until we were in a stable place ourselves.

So how did those experiences inform your work in education? 

Tommy (they/them): I think it's really important to know that a lot of our students come from backgrounds that can be both really diverse and really beautiful. And at the same time can have a lot of challenges that we're not seeing as students.

It's people who maybe grew up in the 90s, in the early 2000s, even in the 80s what life looks like for them these days. And so having a concept of where our students come from is really important in developing your teaching in my opinion. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about your advisory class, cause I bet that is some work that is probably informed a little bit by your experiences.

So what does a queer advisory look like? 

Tommy (they/them): So at our school, we have a number of what are called affinity group advisories. We have one for sports. We have one specifically focused on making sure that African American girls that might be in different situations can [00:02:00] achieve their best.

And one of our advisories is a queer advisory. So it's an advisory focused on LGBT students and and allies. And we talk about queer empowerment, we talk about queer history. All of my students have to know who Marsha P. Johnson is in order to get out of the class. And at the same time, where their places in queer society.

I think a lot of us grew up feeling very isolated where maybe the only place to find any queer community was in chat rooms and stuff like that. And I think it's really important that our students see themselves as coming from a long line of powerful warriors, if you will. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. It was funny because when I was teaching in Texas one of my colleagues was trying to do some work for LGBTQ plus history month.

And the problem that we ran into was she wanted to do a whole poster about Marsha P. Johnson but was concerned about the idea of drugs and prostitution. Basically tarnishing [00:03:00] all the good work and the transformative work that she did. And unfortunately, it being in the South, just the fact that those two words could be Googled by somebody in relation to Martha P.

Johnson basically stopped everything for LGBTQ History Month because there are a lot of people who hear about the queer community and just think about sex. 

Tommy (they/them): Exactly, and it's a shame, so they should know about our history, they should know about Albert Cashier, they should know about Sylvia Rivera people that, that really changed history and it wasn't just about sex, as they'd say.

Bryan (he/they): Yeah, that's the thing that gets me, is it's if you take sex out of the equation, all of these people are empowering folks who've done amazing things, and there are queer people all around the world. Who are empowering folks, doing amazing things. If these folks over here in the corner would just [00:04:00] stop thinking about sex, they would just see the immense joy and power that comes from these folks.

So you are in a school district that seems very inclusive. What are some things that you do when you actually are confronted with anti queer behavior? 

Tommy (they/them): We have, we've got policies at our schools and a really supportive administrative team. Admin are the first to, to jump in and help.

We have, every now and then we have situations. I've worked with high schoolers, 14 year olds are going to be 14. And you've got to just expect that they're going to learn and they're going to grow. And so we, obviously have to come down really hard on things like hate speech and any kind of assaults or things like that.

But at the same time, there has to be a teaching moment and a restorative moment that comes from that. So that our students understand why this was a problem instead of just being told, No, you can't say that. No, you can't do that. They have to know why it's a problem [00:05:00] and what they can do to really make amends.

Bryan (he/they): Surprisingly, in the last three years, you're the first person to use the word restorative. And so always when I try to introduce new vocabulary, I want to make sure that we discuss it. Restorative is referring to a restorative justice approach to consequence and and not really punishment, but just like understanding the consequences of your actions.

Tommy (they/them): That and it's about restoring from the hurt. So it's about making sure that the aggrieved party feels that they've been heard, they've been understood, and that if there's any kind of restitution or reparations that needs to come from this that can happen. Just simply punishing someone, just suspending someone doesn't really do anything.

To help them learn, help them grow, help them become a better student or a better person. What really does help is having them understand where this pain came from, why this was a problem, and usually it ends with them having a much better time with with the queer students at our school.

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. What I find interesting is I've seen that approach happening in, [00:06:00] In the schools that I was working in Texas. And I actually had a situation where one of the students who had been

presumably assaulted, she was unsure if it was actual assault or if it was an accident. And and she was uncomfortable with the restorative side of it. And it was interesting to hear her perspective because she's I don't know that I want the apology. I don't know that I want the extra things. I just want this situation addressed.

And it's interesting because I think that restorative justice is so necessary because it's a learning opportunity for both people and it's about sharing and it's about ensuring that we are being empathetic human beings with one another. And so for me, I was a little taken aback when she was like, I.

I don't want all of these things. And so have you ever, yeah. Have you ever been in a situation where you've had to like reassess how you're handling [00:07:00] the 

Tommy (they/them): portion of it? Yeah. You've always got to talk to the victim in whatever situation you're in to make sure that they feel comfortable with what's happening going forward.

If they just want someone to get away from them or something like that, if The simple ask, then that's a simple solution. What I've seen is that usually students want to be heard. They want to, they want some kind of justice to come from this. But if all they want is just as, as you said with this person, just to get that guy away from me, just, I don't want to be near this anymore.

Then that is as much justice as needs to be doled out, 

Bryan (he/they): I love that. I think that's the important part is listening to the victim or listening to the person both people involved. Listen to the people involved and assess the situation and then go from there. And I think that maybe in the situation that I'm talking about, that's where the administrators failed, was in the listening portion of it.

They didn't listen to what her needs were and she came to me being like, this is uncomfortable. 

Tommy (they/them): Playbook. 

Bryan (he/they): Yeah. And I think that in the playbook, there needs to be [00:08:00] remember to listen, like an asterisk, remember to listen to the victim. You're listening administrators and teachers, if you're handling a situation, remember to listen to the wants and needs of the victim.

And that doesn't mean you have to take a hundred percent into consideration. If they're like, expel this person and you legally can't, then like you, you legally can't and you've listened and you've taken it into consideration. So you know, do what you do, what you can do within limits.

Thinking about authenticity at work. So what advice would you give to someone who is working in education and concerned about being authentic? their authentic self at work. 

Tommy (they/them): A lot of it, honestly, you've just got to toe the line with the law. I remember working in the deep south as a teacher back there and you could be fired for being LGBT.

So you had to remain in the closet, you couldn't talk about your home life or anything like that. I couldn't wear my engagement ring at the time because it would ask, it would lead to too many questions that could get me fired. [00:09:00] But now I'm in a much more progressive state with a lot more robust laws, and I teach in heels, and everyone's cool with it.

No one really minds anything that I do and, I talk to the parents and they're all just yeah, no, that's fine. So it's all about knowing the culture of the area you're in and knowing especially what protections you have, whether that's through a union or through the legal system.

If someone's just a conservative boss, you can get around that. If they have rights to hire or fire you at will, then that's a little bit more of a challenging story. 

Bryan (he/they): And that is much of the South, honestly. It's so frustrating because it's really if all these teachers came together, they can't fire us all.

But the mentality down here is like literally every, not down here. I'm not in the South anymore, but down there is that literally every position, regardless of if you're in education or not, you could be fired at any moment for any reason. And it's just it's, it really is the wild West out there.

Tommy (they/them): [00:10:00] Exactly. So I appreciate it. I'm with you. Yeah, I've been in your state where there's protections. 

Bryan (he/they): Exactly. And a strong union. State protections have. You have a pretty amazing program at your school. And I'm wondering if there are things that you think that either your school community or in general this educational community can do to be more inclusive of queer people.

Tommy (they/them): There's some really easy low hanging fruit that I think every school should get on board with. We started gender support plans a number of years ago and that's such an easy thing to make sure that your trans students are safe. And it takes. One person and maybe half an hour per student.

It's nothing, but can 

Bryan (he/they): you go deeper into that for those who might not know? What a gender support program will look like because they're teaching in a place. That's not inclusive 

Tommy (they/them): Yeah, a gender support plan is a document that's co created between us two Student and a trusted teacher where the student explains who they are, how they'd like to be addressed, how they'd like to navigate the school environment, any levels of [00:11:00] privacy they would like to establish about, who gets to know this privileged information or who should be told about this information that might not be thought of immediately.

Maybe a trusted teacher who's not on your schedule or something like that. And so we create a document that says, for instance, Hi, this person's name is Tommy. They use these pronouns. They are out in these cases and not out in these cases, and they'd like to play women's sports. And so we take all that information down and we share it with all of the students teachers, their support team, their counselors, their admin, our case managers.

And it just makes it so that student can seamlessly exist at school. It's really stressful, I think, for a 14 year old to be put in a position where they have to come out to a hundred people in order to, get the support they need, and worse, they have to remember, okay, I have to tell this person this, and this person this, and this person this.

Instead, we as teachers can just do this on the back end, and I can message a student's entire teaching staff, and make sure that on day one of school they're named correctly, their pronouns are correct, teacher's already watching out [00:12:00] for things like bullying, and the student can just live their life.

Bryan (he/they): I really appreciate that. I once, we were, it was during COVID, so there were some students on campus and there were some students who were still teaching or working, ugh, they were still at home. I'm putting students into the teacher mind frame. But their students were taking their classes online and I had a student who came in because they had to take their statewide test and the roster.

Was deadnaming. And I was at check in table, and they started having an anxiety attack. And, I remember sitting with them and being like, that can't be right, and just taking the pen and crossing it out, and being like, what is your name? And then writing down their name. And then when my relief came, I walked with the student up to their room and I took the roster and I did the same exact thing to the roster to make sure that the student felt comfortable taking the test.

Because what they told me was, I just transferred from another school. I'd [00:13:00] gotten bullied. I've been online this whole time. And people know me for who I am. And I don't want people to suddenly realize that. that I've transitioned. 

Tommy (they/them): Exactly. 

Bryan (he/they): And so the work that we do behind the scenes is so important. And the fact that you have this plan and your program has this plan that is done before the student even comes to campus for the first day of school is phenomenal because I think that takes a lot of that anxiety away for the student, especially if they're a freshman and they're coming on campus and it's all anxiety all the time.

So impressive. What are some other inclusive things? That was, you said low hanging fruit, right? This was one of them. What are some of the others? 

Tommy (they/them): Simple things like if you're able to, if you live in an area with an LGBT center or anything like that, getting someone to come in and talk to your LGBT students, especially about things like sex ed I have noticed that just across the country our health education program does not [00:14:00] adequately teach LGBT people about sex ed and it's really dangerous because then you get young adults going out into the world and doing things that can really affect them for the rest of their lives.

Bryan (he/they): Yep. I was talking to a science teacher who does have to teach like middle school health. And she was telling me that like she has started to create the curriculum because there's only maybe two curriculums nationwide that include gender expansive and sexuality expansive conversations when it comes to sex education and even like health.

How do you take care of your body as a young transitioning trans person might be a little bit different than, looking at the binary of male or female. And so she has started to just build the curriculum from her knowledge base and trying to incorporate that into her sex education and health conversations because It's not readily [00:15:00] available.

There isn't an expansive, or rather, there's not many options for expansive sex education. Exactly. In general. I don't think that they're doing heterosexual, cisgender people justice in sex education either. 

Tommy (they/them): No, it's really hard to find good quality stuff to, to teach students just about their health.

Bryan (he/they): Yep, we need Sue Johansson back. 

Tommy (they/them): Oh, Sue Johansson. 

Bryan (he/they): Isn't that the throwback? That's a deep cut. That's a deep cut. I love Sue Johansson. She was the best. Okay, so expansive sex education and gender gosh, I forgot. Gender support plans. Gender support plans. 

Tommy (they/them): Our school's done a decent amount of stuff and it's, we've gotten hit by the right wing a few times, but we've just kept moving.

I would say if you want to go further, gender expansive wardrobes at school, something so that students can find clothes that fit who they are. At our school we both give out clothes, but also gender affirming shapewear, binders and stuff, free of charge so trans [00:16:00] and non binary students can get everything that they need and, don't have to deal with.

Making purchases on their own and stuff like that. 

Bryan (he/they): And that's so important too, because I've seen so many people become damaged from like binding inappropriately. 

Tommy (they/them): Exactly. 

Bryan (he/they): And. Buying a binder is not gonna necessarily be in the, my allowance money kind of realm for a teenager. Or even in their comfortability to go get it.

Tommy (they/them): And there's so many that are dangerous. The, that, the ones with the hooks down the side and stuff like that aren't appropriate for a human body in general. I don't know why they're still for sale. And so you have to find safe ones. You've got to educate on how to use them and stuff.

GC2B, which is a binder company out of Maryland, does an amazing job of giving educational literature with their resources. 

Bryan (he/they): I love that. I've actually shared their link on the podcast in the past and talking about binders with another person. So this is another opportunity to just shout them out because I love the work that they're doing.

It's in my [00:17:00] opinion, so much safer to, provide not only the product but like a little foundational education that's going to help this person as they go get more products later on. 

Tommy (they/them): Exactly. 

Bryan (he/they): I love that. And what I love right now also for you, it's a big step forward is that, just a week or two from this recording in the past it became illegal to out kids.

Tommy (they/them): The anti outing bill, the anti forced outing bill in California. 

Bryan (he/they): Yeah, and I think that is so impactful because we have so many southern states who are basically creating the mandatory outing bill. And it's 

Tommy (they/them): really dangerous. So dangerous. You can out someone and they get home to an abusive household if they're even allowed to come home anymore.

It's wildly dangerous and irresponsible for teachers to be put into that position. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. And what's wild to me is just people [00:18:00] who claim on one end to be protecting the children and that the same, in the same mouth that they're talking about protecting the children, they're saying, but parents have rights too.

And the parents need to know if this is happening and they're potentially putting these children in danger. 

Tommy (they/them): I always wonder if for other situations, We would be as quick to tell parents if a student was exploring a different religion or a different political philosophy or something like that, would we be so quick to tell parents that someone's reading the gospel or something?

Bryan (he/they): I saw your child with the Quran yesterday. Exactly. 

Tommy (they/them): We would never do that. 

Bryan (he/they): No, absolutely not. I don't know why this is such a hot topic. It's funny because I've been dealing with a lot of comments on YouTube and YouTube. Many of them are like, get this crap off my feed, and I'm like, bro. Namely because I have teenagers and they say bro to me all the time.

I'm like, bro, you're the one [00:19:00] searching for queer stuff. That's how it ends up on your feed. I didn't put it there. I wasn't like JS7292 put it on their feet. That's a made up username. And if you have the username JS7292, I'm so sorry. But I think that's the part that's wild for me is just how much people are focusing on this one issue.

And I'm like, we're whole human beings. Who have whole other parts of our identity. Let it go. So we've been doing some questions from our listeners and today's question comes from George. George asks, why did you choose to work in education? 

Tommy (they/them): I chose to work in education because I feel like it's really important to just to be seen as someone like me so that someone else Who's younger knows that it's safe to to dream that you're going to be something bigger.

And for a lot of us, just to see that [00:20:00] there's something on the horizon past 18. 

Bryan (he/they): That's the part, that's the part I was missing when I was a kid. I couldn't see my life after high school because there was no life for queer people. And I knew I was queer. And I grew up in the eighties, nineties and early two thousands.

And so I came out of, the AIDS epidemic and all of these queer men dying. And so that's the part that I think is so impactful is letting someone know that not only can you live, but you can thrive after that. It's not just it gets better. It's once you get through this kind of crappy part of life, which is high school in general.

Once you get through this kind of crappy part of life, not only can you have a better life, but you can have whatever most amazing life that you want to have because you can do anything that you want because you want Every human being can. Exactly. I love that. Thank you, George, for your question.

And if you would like to hear [00:21:00] your question on the podcast, you can click the Ask a Queer Educator link on your podcast service provider. Tommy, I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me and talking to me about your experience. I appreciate you being so vulnerable and sharing about your resources because I think that is the most impactful part of our conversation today is practical resources and steps that schools can take.

And you've really And I really appreciate that. 

Tommy (they/them): Well