When Julia Sharkey resigned from Kuna High School, she kept mementos — messages from students telling her she had helped save their lives.
In an interview with the Idaho Statesman, the former teacher pulled a stack of cards and papers from a packed yellow envelope. As a former counselor for the Gay Straight Alliance at Kuna High, she received dozens of them: “Thank you for keeping me safe,” “for giving me a safe place to be,” “for helping me feel safe and accepted in who I am.” In another card, a student told her he didn’t think he’d make it to graduation day.
“I’ll be honest, I would be dead today if I didn’t have a great support system,” the letter reads.
On her last days at school, she said goodbye to a class with several students in tears, she told the Statesman.
The longtime educator said she kept all those notes to remind herself that a small gesture — treating students with respect and calling them what they ask to be called — can have a huge impact on children’s mental health.
Earlier this year, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a law requiring teachers to get written approval from a student’s parent or guardian if they want to use names or pronouns different from their birth gender. The law came after Sharkey spent a long year fighting district and state proposals that she said would harm her students, she said.
The law, which went into effect July 1, would require teachers to disclose to their families whether their students are transgender or nonbinary. It also protects teachers who refuse to use students’ requested pronouns.
“I never thought I would resign. I thought I was going to have a long-term career,” Sharkey told the Statesman. She was prepared for low pay and long hours, “but I wasn’t prepared for the severity of the politics,” she said. “My district and the state have asked me to do things that I strongly disagree with.”
Several Idaho teachers told the Statesman they fear the new law could put children in danger if their parents don’t support them and could negatively impact their relationships with their students. Students could also decide not to come to school rather than face teachers who don’t address them the way they want, teachers said, or could face even more harassment.
When the bill was introduced, Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican who sponsored the legislation, said at a legislative hearing that Idaho state employees had been pressured to recognize a person’s preferred pronouns “for fear of retaliation.”
He presented little evidence of what was happening and said teachers were “afraid” to come forward and felt their jobs were threatened. The law protects First Amendment rights and compels people to speak out, he added. Hill did not respond to a request for comment.
Idaho Laws
For several years, Idaho has been a pioneer in passing laws that affect LGBTQ+ people. In 2020, Idaho became the first state to ban transgender women and girls from playing girls’ sports. Since then, the legislature has banned gender-affirming health care for transgender youth and required students to use the bathrooms that correspond to their birth sex.
Idaho’s laws, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, mean that LGBTQ+ students in the state have little to no protection from discrimination. Earlier this year, a federal judge temporarily blocked a new Title IX rule from going into effect in Idaho that would have banned discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in schools.
Matthew Sizemore, a spokesman for the Nampa School District, said the law would not do much to change what is already in place. A district policy states that the district cannot “coerce speech” or require staff members or students to “affirm a belief they do not hold.”
Brian Coffey, a Nampa teacher and adviser to the Nampa High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance, said LGBTQ+ students have faced bullying for years. The Nampa School Board’s decision two years ago to remove about 20 books from school libraries, many of which featured LGBTQ+ people, further alienated those students, he said.
“The LGBTQ community, in my opinion, as an ally and as a school counselor, has been targeted for years, and more aggressively every year,” he told the Statesman. “But it’s not like it’s always been easy to be gay in Nampa.”
The district, Coffey said, wants to be kind and respectful to students, but also wants to follow the law. Many parents in the district also have strong religious or political beliefs about gender identity, he said.
“The goal of the legislature’s intervention is really to stifle and prevent people from talking about it,” he said, adding that people want to go back to the “good old days” when people felt like they had to stay “in the closet.”
Sharkey said that over the past year, she has received complaints of student indoctrination from a small group of parents and threats from her administration for speaking out against policies that allegedly forced her to denounce her students.
“Students… didn’t know who to trust, who to go to or who to tell their preferred name,” she said. She added that some students stopped coming to school because they didn’t want to hear their original name and didn’t feel accepted.
She said she feels the district’s culture allows for bullying of LGBTQ+ students. In her GSA club, her job is to provide a space for students, she said, so she doesn’t provide a curriculum, and the students run the club and decide what they want to do.
Matthew Horner, a behavioral professional at West Ada who is a trans man, said he finally feels comfortable with himself after transitioning and receiving gender-affirming care. But students who question their gender identity still feel insecure and uncomfortable in their bodies, and these policies could further traumatize them, he said.
“It’s frustrating to me,” he told the Statesman. “It seems like we’re so focused on taking away people’s rights, and not focused at all on providing additional support.”
School Safety
Teachers told the Statesman they were still figuring out how to comply with the law while respecting their students. They also said the law could pose more problems than Parliament anticipated.
Many students have names other than their legal names, and Sharkey said many teachers she knows plan to continue calling students by the name they ask to be called.
Teachers said schools already struggle with chronic absenteeism and the law could only make things worse for LGBTQ+ students whose families do not support their gender identity.
Cassie Horner, a teacher in the Boise school district and adviser for the Unity Club, a group for LGBTQ+ students and their allies, said she has done everything she can to support her students and make them feel safe around her. She wears a pronoun pin and asks students at the beginning of the year what they want her to know about them. She plans to continue doing so, she said.
“I’m going to do it out of respect for my students,” said Cassie Horner, who is married to Matthew Horner.
The Boise school district is working on guidance regarding the new law and plans to share it with staff early in the year, spokesman Ryan Hill said.
“Any proposed guidance will not only ensure that we comply with the law, but will also reinforce that every student deserves a safe, respectful and welcoming learning environment,” he said in an email.
Sharkey said she has always been passionate about teaching and advocating for her students. She cares about the happiness and health of her students, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.
“I feel like Idaho doesn’t want teachers like me,” she said, “because I just accept kids the way they are.”
