NEW ORLEANS– Ava Kreutziger was in high school English class last year when she heard about the passed legislation that could impact LGBTQ+ students like her. She excused herself from class to go cry in the bathroom, only to find two of her classmates already there in tears.
Those bills were vetoed, but similar proposals — now with a better chance of passage under a new Republican governor — would regulate students’ pronouns, the restrooms they can use and classroom discussions about gender and sexuality. that opponents call ‘Don’t do it’. Say Gay Bills.
In the past, students at Kreutziger High School in New Orleans have staged walkouts to protest anti-inclusion proposals. This year, a group of students tried something different: a play based on their own experiences, performed on the steps of the Capitol. Compared to a raucous demonstration, the students hoped that a play could generate more empathy.
They have seen first-hand the mental health struggles of queer students, who were four times more likely to commit suicide than straight students during the pandemic. For those involved in the play, the proposals before the Legislature are a matter of life and death.
“I just hope they can see something in us worth saving,” said Kreutziger, a 17-year-old senior at Benjamin Franklin High School.
For students who may feel like pawns in political and cultural battles playing out across the country, the play also offered a chance to regain a sense of power.
“It’s the deepest expression of who they are. And that part of it, knowing that you can create something beautiful, that can create change,” says Ariella Assouline, program manager at the It Gets Better Project, an organization that supports LBGTQ+ youth.
Benjamin Franklin High, a selective charter school, used part of a grant from It Gets Better to fund the production and hired Broadway director Jimmy Maize to help students develop a script. Maize is a member of the Tectonic Theater Project, best known for ‘The Laramie Project’, a play about the 1998 murder of gay student Matthew Shepard.
The students’ play, called “The Capitol Project,” came together with just a few rehearsals on Saturdays and during the school’s playwriting elective course. They performed it on Wednesday, four days ahead of Sunday’s international Transgender Day of Visibility.
Students were nervous as they climbed the steps of the Capitol building, the tallest building in the US. Facing the entrance, the teens shared their stories. Some were about the joy they felt learning about LGBTQ+ history at school, or their parents’ acceptance. A student laughed at a plan hatched at age 12 to come out of the closet at midnight on New Year’s Eve by kissing his best friend.
Others spoke of feelings of despair and shame. In one scene, two students pulled out a thick rope tied into a noose at one end. Jude Armstrong, 17, walked across it like a tightrope, her legs wobbly.
“What do you say to a little child who prays to the same God as you?” asked Jude, who is transgender, in another scene. “When they ask God how long before they can be themselves?”
Bills targeting gay and transgender rights are at the top of conservative agendas in statehouses across the country, with state lawmakers considering hundreds of proposals over the past two years that affect teachers and LGBTQ+ students.
Earlier versions of the Louisiana proposals were vetoed by the state’s Democratic governor last year. But with a new Republican governor and supermajority control of the Legislature, there is a clear path to passage for the bills introduced this session.
Louisiana state Rep. Raymond Crews, a Republican who authored a bill that would ban schools’ use of a child’s preferred pronouns without parental consent, said the debate over pronouns is a distraction from the fact he hopes the bill “will fade into the background. ” He said it is misleading to use a student’s pronouns if they do not correspond to gender at birth.
“We ultimately cannot be responsible for people’s feelings,” he said.
While the students performed, lawmakers in the House of Representatives were debating a bill on auto insurance. As it turned out, only one lawmaker — state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat — stayed to watch the piece for any length of time.
Royce said he worries the bill will push talented young people to leave the state.
“How can we expect children to stay in a state like this when laws are passed that essentially say to them, we don’t care about you?” he said.
In the final scene of the production, a mother and her child came forward for dialogue. Eve Peyton, marketing and communications coordinator at the school, told how she struggled when her child chose a new name. It felt like they were rejecting a precious family gift. Eventually, Peyton realized that “gifts can be outgrown.”
“I’m here to fight with them every step of the way,” Peyton said.
She passed the microphone to another adult, who said the same thing. The microphone was passed again and again. A total of 49 times, as the performers watched with tears streaming down their faces, adults and children in the audience said the same thing: “I’m here to fight with them, every step of the way.”
___
Associated Press writer Sara Cline contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives funding from several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s Standards for Working with Charities, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.