Ohio teachers train colleagues to navigate anti-LGBTQ+ classroom laws

This story originally appeared on The Buckeye Flame.During a time when Ohio’s Republican majority is seeking to reshape the state’s public education system, Youngstown-area middle school teacher Erica Putro was surprised to find her colleagues knew little about anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that would completely change how they interact with queer students.Few of her peers knew much about Ohio House Bill 8 (the “Parents’ Bill of Rights”), which requires schools to out transgender students who “identify as a gender that does not align” with their original birth certificate’s gender marker.Concerned about the lack of awareness, Putro helped launch Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education alongside the local LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit, Mahoning Valley Queer Action (MVQA). The goal is to educate educators on anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that affects their classrooms, and help them motivate their school boards to protect students.“We’re supposed to make sure kids are healthy, safe, supported, challenged and engaged,” Putro said. “You can’t make sure that kids are healthy and safe if we’re welcoming an extremist ideology.”HB 8 was “hard to ignore,” and the lack of guidance from schools was “frustrating,” said Putro, who has been a teacher for 27 years and whose own children are LGBTQ+. New anti-LGBTQ+ laws, executive orders and the deaths of trans teens–including the 2024 murder of Pauly Likens in nearby Sharon, Pennsylvania – hit too close to home.“Every single thing started to feel very personal,” Putro said. Queer teens in the community “just really wanna be kids.”Despite the bill impacting the classroom, she said “very few educators” knew about the bill–including leaders in her own school district. She was “feeling really bold one day” after she saw a board member alone in the hallway.“I said, ‘Can you talk to me about our policy about HB 8 – this policy that you all had to write over the summer and file with the stat