Guest Commentary written by

Stephanie Wade

Stephanie Wade

Stephanie Wade is a former Marine, high school teacher and served as a veterans liaison and field representative for former Rep. Gil Cisneros. She was one of the first openly transgender women to serve on a Congressional staff.

Re: “Californians are divided on LGBTQ issues at schools, but there’s a path to parental support“

While noting the unpopularity of LGBTQ inclusion in schools and the FAIR Education Act’s mandate to include LGBTQ people and history into California’s K-12 curriculum, a recent guest commentary author concluded that schools should “tread lightly” to avoid “backlash.”

He was wrong.

Demanding equality always promotes backlash. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the Civil Rights Act a year earlier, 69% of white Americans viewed Martin Luther King Jr. unfavorably. Did King and his allies win by treading lightly? Hell no. They marched, civilly disobeyed and demanded equality.

Sally Miller Gearhart and Harvey Milk did the same in 1978 when they helped beat the Briggs Initiative, which tried to bar gay people from teaching. Decades later, that confidence ultimately led to the FAIR Education Act.

Backlash is not a reason to abandon inclusion but to enforce it. Inclusion is good for the curriculum but also a fundamental demonstration of equality in and outside of schools. Instead of pandering to bigotry, we need to demand full implementation of the law.

You can’t win a war of ideas if you apologize for yours.