Read more at the Texas Tribune.

Ethan Brignac, a transgender student at Wylie East High School, has been “Ethan” since seventh grade — to his friends, family and teachers. When he reached high school, his dad further validated his chosen name by requesting “Ethan” be used in school records, including in his email, class rosters and ID, which his teachers honored until this fall.

Three weeks after Brignac started his senior year, Wylie East administrators called him to the library and gave him a new ID. On it, in white capital letters, was a name he hadn’t been called in five years.

“In the first week of school, when I was kind of trying to convince my teachers to call me Ethan, I was like, ‘Hey, look, it’s still on my ID,’” said Brignac, who did not want The Texas Tribune to publish his birth name because it causes him discomfort. “Then one of my teachers this year said, ‘Okay, they’re gonna fix that soon.’”

Now, he said, some teachers seem to wedge his legal name into every interaction, outing him to peers and resurrecting the dread he felt before school records reflected his chosen name.

“It was definitely a big change having my deadname kind of sprawled everywhere,” Brignac said, referring to a derogatory practice of calling a trans person by their birth name. “It was like, wow, okay, that wasn’t just a social media post I saw, this is real life.”

A Wylie spokesperson said the move was “to ensure full compliance with state law, including Senate Bill 12.”

A sweeping piece of legislation that went into effect Sept. 1, SB 12 bars public school employees from socially transitioning a student, which it defines as helping to change a student’s sex assigned at birth by using a different name, pronoun or other practice that denies the birth sex. Dubbed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” the law allows guardians to report school-supported social transitioning to the school board, among other powers.

The law also prohibits K-12 faculty from referencing LGBTQ+ identities in class instruction and casual conversations, and it bans school-sanctioned clubs that center sexual orientation or gender identity.

Several transgender students at Texas schools that enforce birth names told the Tribune the new policies have transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. Considered a derogatory practice in the LGBTQ+ community, dead-naming undermines the wishes of trans people and in some cases, forcibly reveals their trans identity, which can cause or worsen mental health problems among these children, studies have found.

Some parents of trans Texas students say they are frustrated because the law appears to ignore their rights for those of other guardians. A few of these parents joined advocacy and teacher groups to file a lawsuit against SB 12 in August, seeking to pause districts from enforcing the law while the case proceeds.

Parents who support SB 12 say the law boosts their role in their children’s education. Many of them want to erase LGBTQ+ topics from K-12 schools, saying they prompt children to question their identities or that schools force progressive views onto their kids.

“We live in an insane world where a school board has to remind teachers that they cannot tell children, you know, suggest to kids they might be homosexual or they might be actually a girl if they’re a biological male,” said Jeffrey Keech, whose children go to Wylie schools. “It’s unbelievable to me that this even is an issue.”

The Tribune contacted two dozen districts across the state, including districts in the Austin, Houston and San Antonio areas, and spoke with a dozen teachers, parents and transgender students about how schools are implementing SB 12, finding that administrators are taking varied approaches. This is because the law leaves the Texas Education Agency and school districts to decide how to implement it, said Rachel Moran, a law professor at Texas A&M University who directs the education law program.

Some Texas school districts and boards, like Wylie, have adopted policies to ban teachers from aiding in social transitioning, but many have not yet — and are still allowing teachers to honor students’ preferred names and pronouns.

TEA would not respond to questions about how school districts are implementing SB 12, how many districts have complied with the law or deadlines for doing so.

Moran said schools might adopt hard-line policies to shield themselves from retribution.

“This is true with any broad mandate — some are going to be overcomplying,” she said. “It has a real chilling effect. They’re afraid to get anywhere close to a perceived line.”

Teachers told the Tribune the law leaves them anxious and confused because they are unsure when they can use nicknames or how they should respond to parents who request their children’s preferred names and pronouns be used. They lament that they won’t be able to support students who come out as queer. School district officials also worry how the policies will interfere with federal and district rules and daily affairs.

Now, Texas public school students sit in the crosshairs of debates over free speech, race, religion and gender and sexuality in school.

SB 12 is part of a slate of laws that increase oversight of K-12 schools, including new rules that mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms and clear the way for book bans. In federal and state governments and now school board meetings, disagreements have escalated from “I don’t think that you have the right idea,” to “I don’t think you’re the right kind of person,” Moran said.

Once a place to hear diverse perspectives, she worries schools will leave children unable to tolerate different views.

“The stakes are not just whether I win or lose this particular culture war,” Moran said. “It’s whether I preserve a tradition that has been so formative of our democracy.”

School policies vary

In addition to the ban on social transitioning, SB 12 prohibits hiring, training, programs and activities centered on race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation — referenced in the law as diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.

It also requires schools to tell parents their rights, such as allowing them access to school records and course content, and requiring that they give permission for their child to receive health care, hear lessons about sexuality and join clubs.

Among parts of the bill that confuse teachers and administrators is how to respond when parents ask that schools use their child’s preferred name and pronouns or what to call students who have already transitioned.

More than two months after the deadline to comply with SB 12, districts are implementing the bill differently.

Conner Carlow, a former registrar who now works as a classroom support specialist in the Leander school district, said faculty can continue to call students by their preferred name if that was done prior to SB 12 going into effect. However, faculty cannot use new names or new pronouns moving forward, and administrators must approve fresh changes on a case-by-case basis through a form parents submit. These updates are only allowed if they appear unrelated to social transitioning, he said.

The name change form is the only written directive Carlow has gotten regarding SB 12. Leander spokesperson Crestina Hardie would not say how the school district is handling name changes because the board has no policy about it. Hardie said the school district is waiting to enact new rules while it reviews the law and gets clarification from TEA and the district’s legal counsel.

“SB 12 deeply impacts personal and highly complex areas of school life, and the biggest challenge for districts statewide is the lack of clarity and consistency in how these laws intersect with existing Board policy, federal protections and day-to-day school operations,” Hardie said.

The Cypress-Fairbanks and Conroe school districts adopted policies that ban DEI practices and prohibit social transitioning or providing information about it.

Argyle and Academy school districts have posted parental rights resolutions, but nothing on social transitioning.

Deer Park linked SB 12 on its website, but it is unclear how the district will implement the law, including gender-affirming names and pronouns.

Wylie distributed a fact sheet advising employees to use the names and pronouns in school records and barring them from discussing race, color, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Although officials disagreed with parts of the law, Houston-based DRAW Academy rolled out the new rules. The 98% Hispanic charter district issued parental notices and consent forms, banned DEI and limited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, according to superintendent and CEO Patricia Beistegui.

“DRAW Academy stands for Diversity, Roots, and Wings, founded under the core belief that diversity and inclusivity is a strength in our democracy,” Beistegui said in an email. She said SB 12 is designed to make positive changes but actually revokes protections.

SB 12 and the way schools are implementing it forces teachers to blindly try to follow the law, said Charlotte Wilson, a Garland ISD special education teacher.

“It’s not clear to teachers what we can say or even do,” Wilson said, referencing instruction about race and LGBT topics. “Teachers are afraid because we don’t want to lose our certifications.”

Wilson wants a say in her children’s learning, but she thinks the law might lead teachers to skip lessons that touch on prohibited themes, undermining students’ quality of education.

“We already highlight different cultural historical events throughout the year, like MLK Day, Hispanic Heritage Month, women’s history,” Wilson said. “If we approach Pride Month the same way, as part of America’s inclusion, and communicate about what’s being taught, that shouldn’t violate anyone’s rights.”

Carlow said Leander’s bar on LGBTQ+ topics makes it hard to support his students. He remembers grappling with his sexuality as a middle schooler and how hard that was.

“I wasn’t telling my parents what was going on, so I imagine these kids aren’t either,” Carlow said. “The fact they’re willing to tell us before even the parents is a big deal, and now the fact that we have to just not accept them, I mean, it’s awful.”

“Called something I’m not”

The varied approaches to SB 12 means transgender students across Texas are experiencing different levels of alienation.

Pride flags fly and teachers use gender-affirming pronouns at Alief Early College High School, said Marshall Romero, a transgender third-year. The only change he noticed was a permission slip to join the speech and debate club.

An Alief spokesperson said the district also sent parents an opt-in and opt-out form for school health services.

Romero said the school remains largely supportive of LGTBQ+ students.

“I never had to worry about the teacher or any instructor telling me, like, ‘Hey, I can’t call you that, or I’m not going to call you that,’” Romero said. “Being able to be called by a name that reflects who I am, being called by certain pronouns, just really gives me a quality of life that I feel like I can hold on and is worth living.”

Cassie Hilborn, a Woodlands High School junior, yearns to be called her gender-affirming name at school. One of Hilborn’s earliest memories is looking in the mirror and wishing she was a girl. During the pandemic, she watched a YouTube video explaining what it meant to be transgender and finally understood why she felt misaligned with her body.

But the past year’s onslaught of transgender-focused federal and state policies stripped her confidence and dashed her plan to wear feminine clothes and ask her teachers to use her chosen name.

“It feels like every day I look at the news and then the headline just reads, ‘Sorry, more things you’ve lost,’” Hilborn said.

The Conroe school board, which governs Woodlands High School, was among the first in Texas to bar teachers from using gender-affirming names and pronouns.

At the school Dungeons & Dragons club, Hilborn’s peers and faculty adviser call her “Cassie,” but everyone else uses the legal name on her ID, which she hides under blue masking tape. She wants her classmates and teachers to know she’s transgender, but laws like SB 12 have discouraged her from coming out.

“Now, even teachers that might have respected my identity have been told that they unequivocally are not allowed to do so,” Hilborn said.

Once school records reflected Brignac’s preferred name, his grades climbed. He became president of the National Art Honor Society and founded an art mentorship program. He raised his hand so often that one teacher joked about it.

His stepmom Shannon Keene worries that being misgendered at school will thrust him back into isolation, like she saw before he entered high school.

This year’s reversal “made him feel rejected as a human being,” she said.

Having socially transitioned in seventh grade when he cut his hair and asked to go by Ethan, Brignac’s peers have been confused to hear his feminine name now used.

He’s reminded every day that his state and school deny his identity. “It’s rough being called something I’m not,” said Brignac, who now avoids talking in class.

Queer young people have disproportionate rates of depression and mental illness. But a study of 129 transgender and gender nonconforming students found that having their identities affirmed decreases symptoms of severe depression. Being called preferred names and pronouns is correlated with a drop in suicidal thoughts by 29% and suicidal behavior by 56%, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2018.

Refusing to use preferred names tells transgender and nonbinary students they’re unworthy of respect, said Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ equality.

“It’s as if someone else picked a nickname for you that you didn’t want, a malicious nickname, that they repeatedly use despite the fact they know what you prefer to be called,” Gooch said.

Parental rights for all?

Some parents who support expelling discussions about queer identities from schools say SB 12 protects children from viewpoints that might spur them to question who they are.

Around three years ago, after Kevin Brooks’ then-middle school daughter returned from school in the Wylie district and said her friend used nonbinary pronouns, he responded: “Sweetheart, don’t buy into that foolishness.”

The army veteran thinks children are too young to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and that it confuses them to hear that gender and sexuality are spectrums, like some schools have taught.

“Why are you teaching these kids that are as young as 5 and 6 years old all this stuff that they don’t need to deal with?” Brooks said. “I told my son the other day, I wish you’d stay innocent till you’re 35 years old, because the stuff that’s going on in the world right now absolutely just, it not only mortifies me, it terrifies me. It just really pisses me off.”

Brooks hasn’t heard of teachers at Wylie discussing LGBTQ+ identities, but he’s terrified to imagine them pledging allegiance to a rainbow flag, which happened in a California classroom in 2021.

In May, Don Zimmerman participated in a protest against a transgender teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in the Round Rock district, where he lives and previously ran for the school board.

Students and at least one faculty member stood across the street with posters saying, “Y’all means all.” To Zimmerman, the faculty member’s presence is proof of schools “coaching children and encouraging them to embrace and publicly protest in favor of this transgender extremism.”

“The school is so hell bent on this agenda of promoting transgenderism and the LGBT lifestyle, …and the parents feel so powerless at stopping the public schools agenda that they go to the Legislature and get these laws passed,” said Zimmerman, who sent his third grader to private school to shield him from LGBTQ+-themed lessons.

Parents of transgender students say new policies complying with the so-called “parents’ bill of rights” are a slap in their face. Keene, Brignac’s stepmom, said policies against using gender-affirming names and pronouns pander to conservative views and hurt gender-queer children, who are 3.3% of youths ages 13-17 in the U.S.

Brignac’s biological mom told the Tribune she is now seeking to change her son’s legal name so he hears Ethan when he graduates.

“I fail to see the correlation between a parent asking that their child be called by their preferred name and pronouns and providing direct instruction on gender identity,” Keene said. “It’s about control, not about rights. And it’s also just blatant disregard for a person’s sense of self. And to do that to kids is unconscionable.”