Trans erasure police went after theater kids

Texas Trans activist Landon Richie protesting anti-trans legislation in Austin, Texas outside the state Capitol building in 2022. (Photo Courtesy of Landon Richie)

Let’s face it. With transphobic people, it is never “about” what they say it is about. With trans girls participating in sports, they said it was about the inherent physical superiority of male biology to female biology. They said they cared about the “threat” against girls’ sports. They said it was about how creatively ambitious boys were about to take them over. “The women’s issue of our time is the idea that we have biological boys playing in girls sports,” Nikki Haley wailed. 

“We wonder why a third of our teen girls seriously contemplated suicide last year,” she then brainlessly pondered over an issue that had nothing to do with trans girls effect. 

It is estimated there are about fifty transgender women in college sports, and less than a hundred in all other public education sports. There are approximately 8 million women in college, and 26 million girls in elementary and high school. Do the math. There is literally no problem even if trans women and girls dominated every sport in which they participated, which they don’t.

This is about a concerted effort at erasure. They want trans kids to be invisible, to be not in existence. They are starting with sports, but they are not stopping there.

“First they came for the trans athletes, and I did not speak out…”  Now they are coming for… wait for it… the trans theater kids.

Not long ago, it was reported that a Sherman, Texas high schooler has been removed from a production of Oklahoma for being trans. The statement by the Sherman Independent School District is as nonsensical as it is outrageous. “It was brought to the District’s attention that the current production contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content.”

Oklahoma. Rogers and Hammerstein. Rated G everywhere from Australia, to Japan, to the US. Winds howling down the plains, and in full disclosure, “a girl who can’t say no.” 

It is about as “adult themed” as trans women are a threat to teen girls, which is to say, not at all. Clearly the only issue Sherman Independent cares about is the casting of the young trans man.

There is no sane or logical way to rationalize this move. Gender has been completely irrelevant in theater dating to ancient Greece, through the Shakespearean era to modern day. Play a drinking game and take a shot over every actor or actress that has played a part other than ones that match their gender “assigned at birth” and you’ll be drunk before you finish reading this article.

Sherman Independent is so blatantly discriminatory that they do not even feign ignorance of this cultural norm. They specifically state that they are only using it as an excuse in this instance. “Because the nature and subject matter of productions vary, the District is not inclined to apply this criteria to all future productions.” Translation: if a cisgender girl wants to play a male part, that is ok. If a transgender boy wants to play a male part, that is forbidden.

Here is my open letter to the administrators of the Sherman Independent School District:

Dear Sherman Independent,

     I write this as the dad of two sons already through high school. I write this as a parent who advocated for his kids for 12 years and fought tooth and nail for them to be able to excel and become educated within the freedom to be the best versions of themselves.  I know firsthand that trying to educate a child in a way that is foreign to who they are, is a fruitless, and often unwinnable uphill battle.

   Speaking as a parent for all parents, I ask this sincerely, please write a new letter to replace the statement you released.  This letter can be very simple, and concise. Just write:

    “Dear parents. We the administration resign. We are not fit to be trusted with your kids. Not the transgender kids, not the cisgender ones either.”

   As a former theater kid myself, I can tell you that participating in one’s high school theater production can be an absolute gift. It can teach you to put yourself in the shoes of another being who is not you. It can teach you empathy. It can teach you to look at the world through someone else’s eyes. Through that experience to explore character, it can teach you who you are.

In high school I played a sailor who dies at sea, I played a villain, and I played Carl Sandburg. I was assigned none of those things at birth. And no one asked to look into my underpants as a condition of my casting.

  Clearly, learning empathy, or an ability to look at the world through another’s eyes are lessons you yourself never learned. This alone makes you unqualified to teach kids. 

  We need to have kids who care about others, who celebrate differences, and thrive on diversity. You cannot teach what you do not know.

  You appear to only know how to cave to your own fear.  You encounter something new and you seek to erase it. The problem is, too many like you have done that to trans kids, and those kids suffer and end up literally erasing themselves.

They are beautiful, and we cannot have you doing that to them. So, please, go.

Before you go, you might want to catch a rehearsal of the show you cancelled and hear them say this line, “Resilience is woven deeply into the fabric of Oklahoma. Throw us an obstacle, and we grow stronger.”

When you hear it, just know, the same thing can be said of Queer Kids and their allies.

We grow stronger.

Sincerely, 

A Dad