The Disruptive Power of Policy Erasure: How State Legislators and School Boards Fail to Take up Trans-affirming Policies While Leaning into Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online May, 2024
The Disruptive Power of Policy Erasure: How State Legislators and School Boards Fail to Take up Trans-affirming Policies While Leaning into Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies
Since 2017, hostile anti-LGBTQ+ educational bills rapidly expanded. Using traditional and critical policy analysis across three Midwestern states, we examine (1) whether state and local policymakers (n = 60) adopted trans-inclusive protections aligned with the 2017 federal Whitaker ruling, (2) the spread and scope of state and local educational policies concerning LGBTQ+ people, and (3) relationships between LGBTQ and critical race theory (CRT) curricular bills. We find policy erasure in states without pre-Whitaker gender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws and expanded efforts to ban LGBTQ+ students from educational opportunities, spaces, and curriculum. LGBTQ+ and CRT curricular bans overlapped. We discuss the implications of policymakers leaning into exclusion over gender reforms.
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