As trans youth face the majority of attacks aimed at the trans community today, many suffer from feeling scared or isolated in their identity. Chicago teacher Dr. Corey Lascano wants to be a sign of hope for them.
Lascano, who’s now in her fifth year as a music teacher in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), is both an energetic music enthusiast and a staunch supporter of her LGBTQ+ students. As a trans educator herself, she hopes to inspire the youth she works with to be their most authentic selves and works to create a future where they can feel safe.
Lascano, who works on the Northwest Side, teaches choir and world music. She also works as a department chair and is a committee chair for the LGBTQIA+ Committee in the Chicago Teachers Union.
Much of her work in and out of the classroom includes organizing and working for LGBTQ+ youth across the district. She enjoys doing activist-type work, and said she views the work she does in CPS through an activist and social justice lens, as well.
Teaching mostly high schoolers, Lascano said she loves watching them come in as teenagers just out of middle school and leave as young adults. She also enjoys seeing students in her GSA and other spaces figure out their identities and learn more about who they are and who they want to be.
But a lot of her joy also comes from simply being a choir director.
“[It] is so rewarding for my soul,” she said. “Because even amidst all of the chaos, when we’re making music and we’ve worked hard and we sound so good, it heals something.”
Lascano’s first music teacher was her grandmother, leading her into a lifetime of love for music. She describes it as always being a “core part” of her experience.
“A lot of my expression when I was little, if I was upset about anything or just feeling a particular way, I would just sing. I would make up songs on the spot,” she said. “So as I progressed through school I knew that I wanted to go to college and do something with music.
Lascano entered college as a music major, later shifting to music education. She even ended up staying an extra year to achieve an anthropology minor and later went on to receive a master’s and Ph.D. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology.
After coming out in college—which she describes as “very difficult”—she wanted to make sure her work can help empower others. With Ethnomusicology, she combines her love of music with her love of learning about different ways of existing in the world that aren’t just rooted in the West or whiteness.
Lascano arrived in Chicago in 2019 after completing her PhD and decided to begin a career in education. To her, it was one of the best ways to work with young people and teach them to advocate for themselves.
She also hopes to encourage them to feel comfortable pushing back when things aren’t okay.
“And for my queer youth, making sure students see themselves as best they can, they see healthy trans adults,” she said. “But also, they can see that we are out there fighting for them and doing this work to make sure that they can grow up and thrive.”
Being a trans educator who works with queer and trans youth, Lascano said there have been moments where they’ve cried or shared their feelings with each other. While being in Chicago provides a buffer to a lot of the anti-trans attacks, she said it’s still a very scary time nationwide.
Lascano also emphasized the importances of GSA’s—she’s seen their impact on students and describes them as “life-saving.”
“We have long survived as queer and trans people through community,” she said. “GSA’s are that community for our young people—schools that do not have GSA’s are not safe for queer and trans kids.”
She said she’s also learned a lot from being connected with LGBTQ+ youth—whether that be to advocate for herself or grow more confidence. She’s inspired by how much they know about their identities at a young age, whereas she didn’t even know about trans identities until she was in college.
Lascano said it would be “incredible” to have a generation of trans people who don’t know what it feels like to be denied the right to exist. As a trans adult, she sees it as her responsibility to fight for their future.
Lascano herself has transitioned physically and socially throughout the time in her current position. She said she came to terms with her trans identity about a year before she started teaching, and as she’s transitioned slowly over time, she’s dealt with misgendering from coworkers. She said some staff still regularly misgender her.
“It’s challenging,” she said. “If it were my student, I would actively be correcting them. But when it’s your own person, it’s a lot harder to advocate for yourself especially when these are people you work with every day.”
However, she does have a support network of people in and outside her school to share the burden with her. Coworkers will correct other faculty about Lascano’s identity, which she said is important as trans people need more allies to step up for them.
Lindsey Williston, an English teacher who’s known Lascano since she began working at Williston’s school in early 2020, bonded due to both being in the LGBTQ+ community. She said she appreciates how there’s a group of queer teachers at their school, which she believes helped Lascano especially as she transitioned.
Williston is in her 20th year at CPS and said this is the first school she has been out at. For her, it’s a “huge comfort” to have others like Lascano in the building.
She has also seen the effect Lascano has had on students. Williston said she has a “gregarious, nice personality” which helps draw students in and create a positive atmosphere. Williston said Lascano is also bilingual and can connect with bilingual students in class and the GSA.
As a self-described “Old Gay,” Williston also teaches Lascano about activism safety and also helps teach the students how to protest safely. She said Lascano is someone who is always trying to help someone, with much of her work being activism oriented.
“She’s the definition of ‘Speak even when your voice shakes,’” Williston said.
Some of Lascano’s friends also include other trans educators she’s met through CPS. She said their community is “necessary for survival,” and she values connecting with people who truly understand the experience of being a trans educator. They also collaborate on finding ways to better serve and support queer trans youth in their schools.
As many teachers and school communities have struggled since the pandemic began, Lascano said the best way people can support Chicago teachers is through support of the CTU—particularly her committee within it.
“We are working hard to advocate for LGBTQ+ staff, students, [and] our entire school community,” she said. “When we are actively working towards creating safe schools and safe environments, we need the support of our community and making sure that our principals [and] our leaders hear our voices, and know we have power in that.”