As the Trump administration targets the LGBTQ+ community through sweeping executive orders, Illinois schools could begin to feel the heat.
In his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an order lambasting “anti-American ideologies,” directing agencies to invalidate transgender identities in students and pressuring educators to misgender students in lieu of facing prosecution, alleging teachers who support a student’s transition are “sexually exploiting” minors.
The orders also targeted gender-affirming care for transgender minors (which a federal judge blocked Feb. 13), while banning transgender women from partaking in school sports, part of a right-wing push to villanize transgender athletes under the false pretense of protecting women’s sports.
As the effects of these orders continue to play out, Illinois lawmakers and advocates have pledged to fight back and uphold LGBTQ+ rights amid immense pressure and pushback.
In the wake of Trump’s election, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said “to all who have been made to feel unsafe and unwelcome by the Trump campaign and its allies: know that Illinois is your ally. You will always be welcome here.”
“Everybody’s head is spinning, which is by design,” state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz said. “We have a very strong LGBTQ community. We have so many legal minds, really brilliant people who are going to get us through this, and we have a governor who is not going to capitulate to Donald Trump. He’s not, period. So we’re going to protect them.”
“And I understand that this is pretty much all about getting people into panic mode. I’m not, I refuse. I’m not in a position to panic. I need to calm people,” Feigenholtz added.
Advocate programs, such as The Alliance at PHIMC (formerly known as the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance) and GLSEN, have reiterated their support for the LGBTQ+ community, reminding students, teachers and parents that Illinois is yet to be materially affected.
“Executive orders are very limited, and it’s easy to ignore them,” argued Victor Salvo, co-founder of the Legacy Project who helped write the LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum bill signed into law by Pritzker in 2019.
“I think that worries me more about the Trump administration is its commitment to lawlessness, that it simply will not be bound by laws with which it does not agree,” he added.
While Trump has said he will abide by court orders that block parts of his agenda, Vice President J.D. Vance has pushed to strip courts of their power, Tweeting that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive branch’s legitimate power.”
“It is an intimidation campaign against school districts, against educators and against parents, as well as against the students themselves to try and push LGBTQ students into the closet and to deny the ability of LGBTQ students to live authentically amongst their peers,” said Brian Dittimier, Director of Public Policy at GLSEN. “It will take everyday, ordinary courage to build the environment students deserve.”
Democrats and LGBTQ advocates have pushed back as the Trump administration seeks to defund the Department of Education and remake the nation’s schooling in accordance with a right-wing push to decenter minority and marginalized groups. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who represents the state’s ninth district, rebuked the Trump administration’s effort to “change the whole ethic of this country toward meanness.”
“They really want to demonize, hurt, and, by law, make [LGBTQ] lives difficult,” she added, pointing to university fears to stop diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for worry of government retribution.
Beyond Congress, legal battles have temporarily blocked many of the Trump administration’s mandates.
Amid the uncertainty, advocates encourage Illinois educators to continue business as usual. Julio Flores, program director for the Alliance at PHIMC, recommended that teachers review their schools’ gender support plans—if they exist—and talk with administrators about implementing safeguards to ensure they can best support their schools LGBTQ population.
“I recently connected with an educator in central Illinois who has three trans students, and we had a really good conversation. And one of the things that he mentioned was, ‘I’m trying to support my students as much as possible and their parents as much as possible, but we just don’t have answers, and it feels like no one is advocating for me,’ Flores shared, pointing to the work of the Alliance and other programs to help provide guidelines to educators across the state.
He also called for adult allies who aren’t in school settings to participate in school board meetings to provide a pro-LGBTQ voice and even run for seats to ensure queer bigotry is not given a larger seat at the table.
“Unfortunately, we live in a society where numbers matter, and if we don’t collectively work to ensure that we are represented in those boards and those spaces, it’s going to take us longer to create change to support young people.”
Salvo pointed to the resilience of the queer community as a point of optimism in such a time of hatred, negativity, and overwhelming government bigotry.
“I’m an older person. I lived through the darkest time for LGBTQ people in with the AIDS crisis, and I know in my heart of hearts, they fear us more than they fear anything,” Salvo said. “When they went after us during the 1980s, we could not possibly have been weaker. We didn’t have political connections, we didn’t have money, we didn’t have organization. We had nothing, and we literally built a gay political empire on the strength of what they did to us. There’s no reason why history is not going to repeat itself.”