LGBTQ+ Arizonans Are Fleeing the State.
Interviews with over a dozen queer people who have left or are considering leaving reveal unease about the state’s politics.
Nova Galloway graduated from Grand Canyon University with one goal: become the kind of teacher students would not only be excited to learn from, but also feel safe enough to confide in.
Galloway, who lives in Tempe, a city neighboring Phoenix, said the first few years of teaching were manageable. But then the pandemic hit, and frustrations grew over the lack of resources provided to teachers, the little technology offered to studentsto learn from home, and backsliding on in-person schooling despite rising COVID numbers in the state. At the same time, the state legislature was passing stricter laws on how teachers could address student issues, particularly around sexuality and gender.
Teachers across the state — and the country — were starting to be called “groomers” by school board officials and parents for discussing sexual health issues, utilizing books with LGBTQ+ characters, or even teaching proper pronoun usage. In Arizona, one teacher had a rock thrown through a window at their home after a school board member posted their address, allegedly targeting them for being nonbinary, and another had death threats after her phone number was leaked by local far-right media because they lead a local group for parents of trans youth.
Galloway believed in keeping a low profile. But in the past few years, Galloway also began to recognize they didn’t feel comfortable with their sex assigned at birth. They started using different pronouns and a new name outside of school, which students caught wind of when they found Galloway’s TikTok account…