Students from at least 15 Vermont schools walked out of class Friday afternoon as part of a nationwide protest against measures in Florida and Texas that threaten LGBTQ people and students, organizers said.
Both measures — the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida and a directive that treats transgender care for youth as “child abuse” in Texas — felt especially personal to Montpelier High School student Charlie McCaffrey, who helped to organize Vermont walkouts with LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit Outright Vermont.
McAffrey was born in Florida and grew up in Texas before moving to Vermont. Recent headlines have left them with a mix of emotions — from not knowing how to feel, to “terrified and angry and just feeling helpless,” they said — but the walkouts provided something to focus on.
“This is what we can do to help, and me and all the other youth organizers at Outright really pushed to like, have (the walkout) happen,” McAffrey said.
Queer Youth Assemble, a New England-based organization, announced the national walkout day earlier this month, anticipating it would be “the largest queer youth-led walkout in history.” Outright Vermont then began working with its seven youth organizing interns to facilitate walkouts across the state.
In the capital, Outright representatives estimated at least 50 Montpelier High School students walked to the Statehouse, where they went inside and spoke to members of the Legislature’s Rainbow Caucus about the importance of supporting LGBTQ youth in Texas and Florida.
In Florida, the state Senate on Tuesday passed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which would bar schools from teaching children up to the third grade about sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill, which is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been widely condemned by LGBTQ advocacy groups and their allies as harmful and discriminatory.
And in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last month directed state health agencies to treat the delivery of gender-affirming medical treatments to transgender children as child abuse. The move — which was halted by a Texas court late on Friday, the New York Times reported — forced several types of public servants to report parents who aid their child in receiving such care to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
The actions in both Florida and Texas “create fear and stigmatization and criminalize the existence of LGBTQIA+ youth,” the caucus said in a press release earlier on Friday, though it noted such efforts are “nothing new in our country.”
In a press release ahead of the walkouts, Outright Vermont said that “attacks on LGBTQ+ rights are present everywhere, including here in Vermont,” drawing attention to a legal challenge to transgender student protections in the Dresden School District, which includes students from Vermont and New Hampshire.
And McCaffrey argued that everyone is harmed by the measures in Florida and Texas, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.
“The queer community’s openness around things like sexuality and mental health, and like all these resources, I feel like straight students could really benefit from that as well,” they said.
Despite their concerns for LGBTQ people, organizers ultimately hoped the event would be joyous instead of solemn — and McCaffrey said that turned out to be the case.
“People were having fun. People were … doing chalk on the Statehouse steps, and there were all the signs and whatnot of support and just like messages of support,” they said.
A couple of hours south in Whitingham, at Twin Valley Middle High School, at least 30 middle schoolers and high schoolers chanted outside their school in support of LGBTQ youth, organizers said, representing more than 1 in 10 people in the student body.
Catherine Thomas, a senior at Twin Valley Middle High School, who organized their school’s protest, also had a positive experience. During their school’s 20-minute walkout, Thomas gave a speech and chanted with students, they said.
“All the kids were respectful. The administration made it super easy to work with them,” they said.
One chant, Thomas said: “Just create, assemble, respect existence or expect resistance.”
And another: “Come out, come out. Wherever you are, come out of your closet, come out of your car, come out of your chairs, come out of your fears. Come out, come out wherever you are. Out of the kitchens and into the streets out of the offices and into the streets out of the closets in the streets all unite, fight for our rights.”
