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The first day of school should be an exciting and affirming day for students, but for many queer and trans youth, going back to school can be anxiety-ridden depending on how affirming their school environment is. The environment extends past gender-neutral bathrooms and allowing students to use the bathroom of their gender identity; it\u2019s the students, teachers, yard aids, and staff that make up the environment, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we created this back-to-school guide for queer and trans students, parents, and educators. Skip to the section that\u2019s useful to you. Come back and read the others. Share it with your friends and family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But first, a quick level-set on what\u2019s going on right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few things have changed since last September and it\u2019s worth knowing them going in this year rather than being surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The big one: on June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court ruled that states can ban transgender girls and women from girls\u2019 and women\u2019s school sports teams without violating Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause. It\u2019s a devastating loss to young trans girls and women in already restrictive states, but the ruling only applies to school sports team specifically. This doesn\u2019t impact bathroom access, records, or the dozen other fronts this fight has been fought on. Ultimately, the state that the young athlete is living in will dictate the outcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secondly, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) terminated the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline\u2019s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services program. Previously, youth could dial \u201c3\u201d or text \u201cPRIDE\u201d to connect with a counselor trained in supporting LGBTQ+ youth under 25 years of age, but that is no longer. The administration has said they would restore it by the end of 2026 but there is no update. In the meantime, organizations like the Trevor Project and Trans Lifeline both offer suicide and crisis counseling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, some name changes\u2013we love a name change! GLSEN, the organization behind most of the school climate research and toolkits for students, educators, and parents, have rebranded to Glisten<\/a>. Same mission, same people. And the National Center for Transgender Equality merged with the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund back in 2024 to become Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE)<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, here we go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re going back to school, remember: You don\u2019t owe anyone your whole story before you\u2019re ready to tell it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We dug through Medium essays<\/a> (one written by Chase Strangio<\/a>, which we highly recommend reading), forums on Reddit<\/a> and even Goodreads<\/a>, and a survival guide written for the University of Manchester\u2019s student paper<\/a> to find a few recurring pieces of advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting into the nitty gritty of rights is complicated because the honest answer is that it depends where you live, which is frustrating. A generic list won\u2019t help as much as a specific one will, and these three organizations will get you an answer faster than searching around and hoping:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you don\u2019t have a social circle or community yet, the best move is finding a GSA, or starting one if your school doesn\u2019t have one. The Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network (GSA Network) is a racial and gender justice organization that trains queer, transgender, two-spirit, and allied youth to organize an intersectional movement for safer schools and healthier communities.Their \u201cStart a GSA in 10 Steps\u201d<\/a> clearly lays out how to start a GSA at your school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For community that isn\u2019t tied to a physical location, TrevorSpace<\/a> and It Gets Better\u2019s Youth Voices<\/a> program connects LGBTQ+ students across states. Matthew\u2019s Place<\/a> is an online publication written mostly by youth and explores topics like trans men representation on broadway, trans scholarships, and the most LGBT friendly countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sports is also highly dependent on where you live and what sport you play, especially in the wake of June\u2019s Supreme Court ruling. TransAthlete.com<\/strong><\/a> is a policy tracker broken out by grade level, and is about as close to a real-time answer as exists right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re the parents, guardian, or person who shows up like a parent, know that there is no one right way to talk to your kid\u2019s school. Some parents wait, on purpose, letting questions surface naturally rather than leading with an announcement. This can leave more room for youth, especially older ones, to hold their own story. Some others go the other way and reach out to a teacher or administrator before the first bell, trading a harder conversation now for the sake of getting names and pronouns right from day one. Then, many land somewhere in the middle. A pin at orientation. An offhand introduction as \u201cso-and-so\u2019s mom and mom\u201d. A signal that opens a door without requiring anyone to walk all the way through it in the first month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most families take a blended approach across teachers and kids. One small, concrete thing worth checking regardless of what path you take is whether your student\u2019s school still has intake forms that say \u201cmother\u201d and \u201cfather\u201d instead of \u201cparent\u201d or \u201cguardian\u201d. It\u2019s a small fix, but a surprising number of schools haven\u2019t gotten around to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the toolkits themselves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re looking for the kind of advice that comes from a parent two towns over who\u2019s already been through the process, a local PFLAG chapter is a regional family group tends to be where they are. The specifics about which schools have done real training and which teachers are known safe spaces, information that never quite makes it into a digital handbook, can only be found through word of mouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And if it all goes sideways, check out Safe Schools for All<\/strong><\/a>, a joint project of PFLAG, Glisten, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and GLAD Law, built specifically to help with Title IX complaints. Unite Against Book Bans<\/strong><\/a> and PEN America<\/strong><\/a> are also useful in reporting if a book gets pulled from your student\u2019s school library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’re the one standing in front of the classroom, most of what actually moves the needle doesn’t take a training day or a line item in the year’s budget. It’s smaller than that. Rather than reading the roll call cold on the first day, passing around a sign-in sheet, or just asking before you say a name out loud in front of the room, does the job. Offer your own pronouns when you ask for theirs to normalize this in the classroom. And if you knew a student under a different name in some other context, through a sibling, a past class, a family friend, that’s not yours to bring up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the deeper end of things, a few resources are worth bookmarking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’re advising a GSA, or thinking about starting one, GSA Network’s advisor handbook is worth reading before the first meeting. It’s aimed at the adult(s) in the room and addresses how much space to take up, how to actually hand leadership to the students, and what to do if the administration itself becomes an obstacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for PE teachers and coaches specifically, Glisten’s “Changing the Game<\/a>” and Athlete Ally<\/a> both publish inclusion resources, though both are due an update pass given the June ruling changed the federal baseline they were originally written against.<\/p>\n\n\nBack-to-school resources for queer and trans<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Resources for parents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Resources for teachers and administrators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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