News

Log Cabin Republicans Briefs Department of Education on Transgender Student Equality and Safety

May 9, 2017

Washington, D.C. - Today transgender Log Cabin Republicans members and LCR President Gregory T. Angelo personally presented the United States Department of Education (DOE) with a white paper and briefed DOE officials on the importance of guaranteeing equal access for transgender pupils in public schools.

The white paper, Transgender Student Safety & Equality for All Students, was produced in conjunction with Liberty Education Forum, the non-partisan sister think tank of Log Cabin Republicans. It is the product of more than two months of work by Log Cabin Republicans Transgender Leadership Caucus members Jordan Evans, Regina W. Roberts, Jennifer C. Williams, and Susan Maddison to achieve consensus on meaningful replacement guidance on transgender public accommodation access in the wake of the Trump Administration's February decision to rescind the onerous Obama-era policy on the matter.

"As someone who understands the urgency to make a push for equality from all sides of the aisle, I want to assure my friends and family in the gay community that the results of today's meeting have left me confident that what we're doing is worth the effort and will bring results," Evans stated.

"It is a honor to represent Log Cabin Republicans and our transgender community to the Department of Education," Roberts declared. "We are very pleased with the conversations and are looking forward to helping to produce Title IX guidance that will protect the privacy and needs of all students, both transgender and non-transgender alike."

"Today's meeting with the Department of Education was very heartening and quite productive," Williams added. "Their staff were fully engaged and they asked many great questions about the important issues involved and about our lives as transgender Americans. As a Log Cabin Republican, whose Party was founded in a Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, our meeting with the Department of Education gives me great hope that we will find solutions."

"The promise of the Trump phenomenon was that gay people could get our full rights protected under a Republican President, without our having to serve as cannon fodder for the Democrat Party," Maddison stated. "That hasn't happened yet, but today's meeting is a first step toward realizing that promise. If the meeting leads to solid actions, our community may finally get liberated from the stifling ideological cages, and America will come out much the stronger for it."

Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo concluded:

I couldn't be more proud of our Transgender Leadership Caucus - or of the Department of Education for taking this important meeting. The white paper we presented this morning marks the culmination of weeks of work on behalf of transgender students, but it does not mark the end of our efforts. Log Cabin Republicans remains committed to the safety of transgender students and the equality of all students, and we look forward to continued conversations with the Trump Administration to achieve that end.