This is good advice. You can make a much bigger splash in local politics. Vote. Get educated on local issues. Become an activist. Run for office. Get involved in local community groups. There's only so much your typical individual can do towards national or even state politics, but local involvement is much more impactful.
There's a saying, that the states are the laboratories of democracy. There's often this push to make big scale reforms at the national level, and in some cases that is the right thing. But Congress is perpetually gridlocked. Often it's better to build from the state, county, and local level to fine tune a reform and prove to the country that it is a good idea. Take ranked choice voting. Some states and localities are slowly adopting it without needing permission from Congress.
So here’s what we do: we start a TikTok challenge. “Nickname November” or something like that, where you use a different name every day of the month for maximum confusion. Get a couple classes doing it, especially if there are any trans kids in the school, and you can see how far you can stress the system.
For the schools that require physical signatures, that’ll piss people off right quick. For the ones that just use an automated email and call it a day, toss in a twist: have each student loudly announce their new name at the start of every class, AA style. Heck, get the school announcer in on it. “Chess club on Wednesday has been cancelled, and Squidward Jones is now going by Jackie McJackson Johnstone.”
They want a ridiculous law to be followed? Okay, here you go.
I’m with this in spirit but I don’t think I’d encourage that unless I knew one of my kids teachers was lgbtq-phobic. This will be a lot of hassle for a lot of teachers that couldn’t give two shits about nicknames and pronouns. Driving them to quit won’t change any policies except for policies that push kids into private and charter schools.
I think this assumes that most teachers are otherwise fine and want to go along with it, and also only view themselves as there to transmit data, rather than as role models and sources of love and support for a child.
Any respectable teacher will recognize what the students are doing and support it regardless of any added hassle. As a matter of fact, the teachers supporting the students can use this in support by showing the immense waste of time the R-Small-Government bureaucracy is causing, resulting in less time available to actually teach. A proper protest must disrupt.
If I were a teacher, I’d rather my students did something maliciously compliant than just go along with this idiot policy in silence. Kids have to learn to stand up for what’s right sometime, you know? I want the next generation to know that sometimes, authority really, really needs to be questioned.
“It’s a stunning waste of time and resources for most parents, and it’s coupled with a group of policies that are openly hostile to transgender students and almost seems like the state wants them punished for being who they are,” Hammons said.
LGBTQ+ advocates have said a record number of bills were filed during the 2023 legislative session that they viewed as harmful to the LGBTQ community and specifically transgender youth.
God, I’m so tired of these naive-ass quotes and article tones that completely miss that yes, literally, that is the point. Like they’re not literally calling trans people monsters while they debate these laws.
the republican party platform is basically suicide bombing at this point. it’s a platform of singling out appropriate targets to bully, then hurting everyone but in a way designed to hurt the bullying targets the most. Google “lee atwater speech”, it’s got a lot of n-bombs in it but it basically outlines the way that republicans are proud to be the party of bullies and monsters.
You start out in 2005 by saying “t----- t----- t-----.” By 2023, you can’t say t----. That hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, parents’ rights, bathrooms, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about nicknames, and all these things you’re talking about are totally superficial things and a byproduct of them is, queer folks get hurt more than cishets… “We want to know about kids’ nicknames” is much more abstract than even the parents’ rights thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “t------ t------ t-------.”
Admin: Sir, your child has submitted requests for nicknames for all the names in Mambo #5 and That’s Not My Name. It’s obvious they’re wasting resources.
This is incredibly dumb. And isnt this part of that bullshit “make america great again”?
An extremely popular group of kids in America were on the silver screen back in the day: Spanky, Sunshine Sammy, Pineapple, Bonedust, Skooter, Wheezer, Farina, Chubby, Breezy, Waldo, Porky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa…
So back when America was “great” kids went by nicknames, alternative names, and everything was fine. But now the government has to be involved?
Oh wait, these laws are made to ostracize and antagonize a marginalized group of people! Thanks big government.
And isnt this part of that bullshit “make america great again”?
Yup
Indiana is a shithole, as someone from the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes Region/Rust Belt, I can confidently say that place is the worst state in the entire section of the country. It makes Ohio look good.
Sounds like a great way for these kids to learn about civil disobedience. Just file every day for a new name and clog the system to the point of uselessness
Sadly, it’s not the schools fault for the waste of time, it’s the fuckle-chucks in the legislature. Every single name change request should be routed to the dumbass that authored the bill, then to every other dumbass that voted in favor of it.
I’m joking of course, but yeah that should be what happens. Worked in the school system and seen that “WTF are you serious?” look in school staff meetings hearing stupid stuff like this get implemented. I actually left because I had enough of dealing with these parents who make this happen and dealing with them was just too much.
Emails, calls, people would come in, they were in the PTA, just always around harassing people over the most petty things. I can’t tell you how many grown adults I’ve seen meltdown in a school front office. The pay sucked, some of the parents were awful , but working with kids was awesome.
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