Pittsburgh Public Schools held its fifth annual Gender Inclusive Schools Summit last week ahead of the start of Pride month.
The gathering of LGBTQ students, educators and allies comes as the Trump administration has signed several executive orders banning diversity initiatives and policies aimed at creating inclusive school climates.
PPS superintendent Wayne Walters called the summit a declaration of the district’s commitment to “building schools where every student — regardless of gender identity, expression or experience — can thrive without fear, without compromise and without apology.”
“This summit isn't just about acknowledging gender diversity,” he continued. “It's about rejecting the myth that difference is dangerous.”
District school board members unanimously passed a policy nearly a decade ago that enshrined transgender and gender non-conforming students’ right to use the bathroom and pronouns of their choice.
PPS maintained those policies throughout Trump’s first term, despite the reversal of Obama-era protections for LGBTQ students. The district went on to extend those protections to transgender and gender-diverse employees last year.
Devin Browne, a foreign language teacher at Brashear High School, said the district has a long history of standout protections for LGBTQ educators in the region.
“I was teaching at a suburban district, and I'm an openly gay man, and I am a teacher in K-12 education,” Browne said. “This was back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and at the time, there were no protections for openly gay teachers or employees outside of Pittsburgh.”
Browne took a position at PPS in 1999. It wasn’t long before he helped students begin a Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA).
“We were just making it up as we went along,” Browne said. “And the reason we did it, at least the reason I did it, wasn't because I felt like we needed a GSA. It's because kids felt like they needed a GSA, and they found in me someone that was willing to go to the principal and say, ‘Hey, I want to start this.’”
Browne said PPS now has active GSAs at nearly every district high school and middle school. Around 250 students from 23 schools participated in the summit, which featured former PPS students-turned-advocates, TransYOUniting founder Dena Stanley and local drag queens.
Among the queens was Lavender Hayes-Sinn, who attended Woolslair PreK-5 in Bloomfield.
“However many years ago, I was in these kids' spots,” she said. “Just seeing the transformation of what I could do or what they could do is just so inspiring, and I would love to just pass that down.”
Thursday was drag queen Lynnae O’Connor’s third time participating in the summit. O’Connor has a graduate degree in school counseling, which she said she pursued after reflecting on her experience growing up without visible representation.
“I'm a queer, Hispanic, trans-identifying person, and growing up there was no one like me to help me with my issues,” she said. “At one point, I realized I have to become that.”
“It's just such an honor to see just how much time has been kind to us. And we have a lot of work to do — we have a lot of fights still to go, especially with this current administration,” she continued. “But to see kids like these just cheer for queerness and free celebration and liberation — there's no better feeling.”
“This is my home.”
Students like Gabe, a junior at Brashear High School and a leader of the school’s GSA, attended the summit to find community and show support for other queer students.
Gabe said their club has talked about working with other GSAs across the district to discuss the ongoing federal actions targeting LGBTQ students.
“We just want to make sure that we're all together in this, that we have the support from everyone,” Gabe said.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Education this spring, officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Education signaled that they would not order school districts to scrap their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken steps to freeze federal education funding in Maine, where state leaders have vowed not to obey a presidential executive order banning transgender athletes from school sports.
Gabe said PPS students aren’t going to back down from asserting their rights, even as they face mounting pressure nationally.
“We're staying here. I'm not leaving the GSA. This is my community. This is my home,” Gabe said.
“I built this. This is where I want to be.”
Editor’s note: WESA is not using minors’ last names in this story to protect their privacy.
