Fighting Right-Wing Lies, School Boards Are at the Front Line in Anti-Trans Battles
Deerfield, Ill., was the latest target in the Moms for Liberty’s campaign of anti-trans hatred. Trans allies turned out by the hundreds to stand against them.
by Charlee Friedman
The right wing’s multi-faceted campaign to promote anti-trans discrimination is being fought at local school board meetings across the nation this spring. Take Deerfield, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago, where hundreds of people came out last week to defend trans students.
People aligned with Moms For Liberty, a powerful, Republican-backed group that has pushed anti-trans discrimination and censorship at local school boards nationwide, had begun their anti-trans push in Deerfield in March. Their path was familiar: A parent singled out a trans student, made false claims and misrepresented policy. All that, in turn, led to right-wing media hype and a retaliatory federal “investigation” like those undertaken in Maine and California.
Moms For Liberty, which has been designated an anti-government group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been making considerable inroads in blue states such as New Jersey. Deerfield would seem to be a similarly unlikely hub for anti-trans attacks. Lake County, where the village is located, voted for Kamala Harris by more than 20 percentage points last fall. Gov. JB Pritzker has been a vocal supporter of trans people, and the attorney general has backed Illinois state protections against discrimination based on gender identity.
As elsewhere, the Moms for Liberty campaign in Deerfield started with a misrepresentation: A parent, Nicole Georgas, asserted at a March 13 school board meeting that her daughter had been “forced” to change in front of a trans student.
In Illinois, access to spaces such as locker rooms, restrooms and changing rooms is based on gender identity. No one is forced to change in view of another person. Anyone, regardless of reason, who is uncomfortable using any of these spaces must by law be provided a private alternative. Deerfield District 109, which goes up to grade eight, has private changing stalls in gym locker rooms available for anyone uncomfortable changing in view of others.
At that first meeting, the parent, Georgas, invoked President Trump’s discriminatory executive orders, which are being challenged in the courts, and repeated the anti-trans talking points of national groups. About a dozen people spoke up in favor of the trans student having equal access. Georgas was the only person to speak against the trans youth.
But it did not end there. With the help of national right-wing groups, Georgas filed a series of complaints that led the Trump administration to open the sort of “investigation” intended to coerce state governments to comply with his demands, using the loss of federal funding as a cudgel.
Georgas kept going, embarking on a right-wing media tour in which her account grew ever more fantastical and detached from reality. In one telling, school officials marched her daughter into a locker room and watched while they forced her to change clothes while the trans child watched.
This sort of exploitation of young trans people is another right-wing tactic. A little-known legislator in Maine shamelessly exploited a young trans athlete on social media this winter in a bid for right-wing fame.
The claims in Deerfield fueled the right-wing rage machine despite their being untrue. “The Deerfield Public Schools District 109 Board of Education and administration strongly dispute the patently false allegations that students were forced to change in front of administrators or others,” it said in a statement that also pointed out that the right-wing campaign had led to threats against school administrators.
Georgas arrived with Moms for Liberty reinforcements for the next school board meeting, last week, but parents and trans allies showed up in force — and far outnumbered them. Trans Up Front IL, a nonprofit that advocates for young trans and gender nonconforming people, had organized a concerted response to the anti-trans attacks, filling the room to capacity, with more people waiting outside, in support of the trans middle-schooler. And the truth. A parent of a student in the same gym class said the tales Georgas had spun simply did not happen.
Speakers supporting trans rights called for love and support for trans youth. Several people read written statements from affected families in the school who wanted to remain anonymous to protect their children.
The Deerfield story is only one small part of a larger push from far-right extremist groups to target the most vulnerable and marginalized of the trans community: young people. These groups have been emboldened by the hateful rhetoric and deliberate misinformation being spread by the Trump administration, and they often cite discriminatory executive orders that federal courts have thus far blocked.
“Trans Up Front is fielding requests via social media and our website on a daily basis due to the increase in pointed attacks from anti-trans hate groups,” said Asher McMaher, executive director of Trans Up Front IL. “This week we already have requests to attend three school board meetings and it’s only Monday. We are working hard to continue to provide calls to action and rally support at each school board so that the parents of trans individuals and those students themselves know there are people standing with them.”
Charlee Friedman (they/he) is a transmasc, nonbinary writer and the director of operations for Trans Up Front IL. They have five kids and two grandkids and spend their days drinking tea, homeschooling their disabled kiddo, and advocating for trans rights.