Looking out at a crowd of more than 100 students sitting on the steps of the Idaho Capitol holding signs reading “protect trans youth” and “trans rights are human rights,” Robin Olsen told the story of a “really, really cringy kid.”
“AKA, me,” she said.
She described herself as a theater nerd who insisted on rapping on various topics, from computer programming to her grandmother.
“When I say transgender, I’m sure some of you may have a specific image or description that comes to mind,” she said. “Stereotypes pervade our community. The misconception is that transgender people are all one, but the thing is, we aren’t.”
Transgender, she said, is an adjective. It’s a descriptor for “what we really are, people.”
“Some of us are trained athletes or actors, others computer whizzes or scientific geniuses, teachers, politicians, authors, artists, chefs, bankers, gamers, filmmakers, candlestick makers,” she said. “Even cringy theater nerds.”
Olsen was the first person to speak during a rally Friday organized by high school students to show support for transgender youth and protest legislators’ attempts to pass bills that limit their rights.
More than 100 people, including students and teachers from schools across the Treasure Valley, showed up to sit on the steps of the Capitol holding signs supporting trans youth and LGBTQ flags. The group filled each row of the steps, cheering as speakers shared their experiences.
Rally comes after Senate kills controversial trans bill
The event came days after Senate GOP leaders killed a bill that would have criminalized gender-affirming medical care for transgender children. Republican senators said in a news release they oppose “any and all gender reassignment and surgical manipulation of the natural sex of minors.” But, they said, the proposed bill “undermines parental rights.” The House-approved bill would have made it a felony to provide minors with puberty blockers, which stop or delay puberty, or hormones or transition-related surgeries.
Students said Friday they know this won’t be the last attempt. They mentioned bills making their way through legislatures across the country that seek to limit certain rights of the LGBTQ community.
Lizzy Duke-Moe, a senior at Boise High School who helped organize the rally, said she decided to plan the event after discussing the bill in her government class.
“A ton of us were just talking about it, and were like, ‘Well, why isn’t there a rally,’ ” she told the Idaho Statesman. “So that was how we realized, ‘Oh, no one’s putting on a rally. Maybe we should.’ ”
She worked with other students, including Lilly Wilson and Petra Hoffman, to put together the event. The students put up posters downtown, advertised on social media and reached out to the sexuality and gender alliances at their schools.
They also got some high schools on board. Boise and Borah high schools gave students an excused absence if they were leaving school to attend the rally, Duke-Moe said.
Planning for the rally started before the Senate GOP killed the bill. Because the bill died days before, the event served as both a celebration and a call to keep fighting.
“While this was a celebration, it’s also really important that we know, other legislation is going to come through and the constituents of those bills are going to push just as hard,” Duke-Moe said. “So the fight is not over. It’s just getting started.”
The impact of gender-affirming health care
Throughout the rally, speakers shared their own experiences and emphasized the importance of supporting trans youth and fighting back against bills like the one in Idaho.
Bailey Arendt, a student at the College of Western Idaho, started her speech by reading a testimony her girlfriend had prepared to give before the House committee hearing the bill. In the testimony, Arendt shared that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, her girlfriend started to question her gender. At the time, Arendt said, her girlfriend began to struggle with suicidal thoughts.
According to the Trevor Project’s 2021 national survey on LGBTQ+ youth mental health, more than half of the transgender and nonbinary youth who responded said they had seriously considered attempting suicide over the past year.
Arendt watched as her girlfriend’s depression worsened, and worried about losing her. But once her girlfriend started on hormone replacement therapy, it was an almost immediate improvement, Arendt said.
“I read this to you today because I know what it’s like to see someone who you love hurt,” Arendt said. “It’s the worst feeling in the world knowing you are powerless to do anything but watch that hurt.”
Arendt said she doesn’t understand why the legislators who created this bill would say they care about trans people.
“They tried to take away their medicine, they tried to take away one of the few things that make the pain go away,” Arendt said. “You do not hurt the people you love.”
Allies urge students to keep fighting
During the rally, people who identified as allies also spoke on the importance of rallying behind transgender youth and fighting against these bills.
JJ Agler, a junior in high school, said teenagers should not be having their rights and identities “criminalized and questioned.” Agler identifies as queer.
“It’s exhausting pretending that the offhanded comments don’t affect me, that the laws going against me and those I love don’t affect me. I’m tired,” Agler said. “My exhaustion is a fraction of what transgender youth in my generation are feeling.”
Lils Peterson, a high school senior, said they came out as bisexual and started using they/them pronouns.
Coming to terms with their own gender identity helped them find a confidence they didn’t have before. But being nonbinary and queer in Idaho comes with its own challenges, they said.
“Bills like (the Idaho bill that died) being proposed all over the U.S., they will effectively take away the pride and confidence that queer youth, especially transgender youth, deserve the opportunity to feel,” Peterson said. “Idaho should be working hard to create a community of support, not hoops that one has to jump through to feel like your true self.”
Throughout the rally, speakers called for students to hold politicians accountable and to remember those who were for and against the bill. They called for students to vote, when they were of age, and to keep showing their support.
‘I smile a lot more now’
Olsen said now she feels happy. She wakes up more easily in the mornings.
“School is a lot more fun, now that I can present how I want to. I smile a lot more now,” she said. “It’s hard usually to tell with the mask, but I’m sure you can see little creases next to my eye or a small giggle in my voice. It’s a really cute smile, too.”
She used to hate her smile, she said. But now that she can be herself, it “feels like me.”
If she could travel back to talk to her former self, she would say it was OK to feel different and to “want to be a girl.”
“It wasn’t cringy. It was natural and people would love her unconditionally for being herself,” she said. “So for all the trans youth out there everywhere, to the ones who have known for years, the ones who just realized, to the ones yet to realize, and to the one’s questioning, it gets better.”
Becca Savransky covers education for the Idaho Statesman in partnership with Report for America. The position is partly funded through community support. Click here to donate.
