After trying protests of anti-gay bills, students put on a play at state's Capitol
Ava Kreutziger was in high school English class last year when she heard about the passage of legislation that could affect LGBTQ+ students like her. She excused herself from class to go cry in the bathroom, and found two of her classmates already there in tears.
Those bills were vetoed, but similar proposals — now with a better shot of passing under a new Republican governor — would regulate students' pronouns, the bathrooms they can use and discussions of gender and sexuality in the classroom, which opponents call “Don't Say Gay” bills.
In the past, students at Kreutziger's high school in New Orleans have held walkouts to protest antiinclusion proposals.
This year, a group of students tried something different: a play, based on their own experiences, performed on the steps of the state Capitol. Compared with a raucous demonstration, the students hoped a play could spark more empathy.
They have seen up close the mental health struggles of queer students, who were four times more likely to attempt suicide during the pandemic compared with straight students. For those involved in the play, the proposals before the legislature are a matter of life and death.
“I just hope they can see something in us that's worth saving,” said Kreutziger, a 17-year-old senior at Benjamin Franklin High School.
For students who can feel like pawns in political and cultural fights playing out around the country, the play also offered an opportunity to regain a sense of power.
“It's the deepest expression of who they are. And that part of it, knowing that you can create something beautiful, that can make change,” said Ariella Assouline, a program manager at the It Gets Better Project, an organization that supports LBGTQ+ youth.
Benjamin Franklin High, a selective charter school, used part of a grant from It
Gets Better to fund the production and hired Broadway director Jimmy Maize to help students develop a script. Maize is a member of the Tectonic Theater Project, best known for “The Laramie Project,” a play about the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.
The students' play, dubbed “The Capitol Project,” came together with just a few rehearsals on Saturdays and in the school's elective playwriting course. They performed it on Wednesday, four days ahead of Sunday's international Transgender Day of Visibility.
Students were jittery with nerves as they ascended the steps of the Capitol building, the tallest in the U.S. Facing the entrance, the teenagers shared their stories. Some were about the joy they felt when they learned about LGBTQ+ history in school, or about their parents' acceptance.
One student laughed about a plan concocted at the age of 12 to come out to family by kissing their best friend at midnight on New Years' Eve.
Others spoke to feelings of despair and shame. In one scene, two students brought out a thick rope tied into a noose at one end. Jude Armstrong, 17, walked across it like a tightrope, legs wobbling.
“What do you you say to a little kid who prays to the same God you do?” Jude, who is transgender, asked in another scene. “When they ask God how much longer until they're allowed to be themselves?”
Bills targeting the rights of gay and trans people have topped conservative agendas in statehouses around the country, with state legislatures over the last two years considering hundreds of proposals affecting teachers and LGBTQ+ students.
Earlier versions of the Louisiana proposals were vetoed last year by the state's Democratic governor. But with a new Republican governor and supermajority control of the legislature, there is a clear path to passage for the bills introduced this session.