Carol Tappenden

As we head into Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19, it’s worth remembering that the struggles King named were not only about visible injustice. They were about systems that exhaust people through delay, bureaucracy, and the steady normalization of harm. That dynamic is very much at play right now. This has been a hard week for the trans community. Not because of a single decision, but because pressure is coming from multiple directions at once: legislatures, courts, school boards, and...

The start of a new year has not slowed the pace of attacks on queer and trans students. It has clarified them. Across the country and here in Arizona, the same ideas are advancing through different pathways at once: courts, legislatures, ballot measures, school boards, and culture-war pipelines aimed directly at schools. These are not disconnected moments. They are part of a coordinated effort to shift power away from students and educators and toward forced disclosure, surveillance, and...

This week shows how quickly coordinated attacks on queer and trans students are moving across the country and here in Arizona. The same ideas are showing up at school board meetings, in pre-filed legislation, through ballot initiatives, and in votes in Congress. These are not disconnected incidents. They are part of a deliberate effort to limit who public schools serve and who gets to make decisions about young people’s lives. What is at stake is not a policy disagreement. It is whether trans...