Ohio middle school teacher Erica Putro was shocked to discover how many of her colleagues didn’t know about the state laws legislators have enacted to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ students. She worried that a lack of knowledge on the subject would make it much harder for teachers to protect and advocate for their LGBTQ+ students.
So she decided to do something about it.
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Putro worked with the LGBTQ+ nonprofit Mahoning Valley Queer Action (MVQA) to launch Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education, an initiative to both educate teachers on how anti-LGBTQ+ laws affect their students and also encourage them to speak to their school boards about implementing policies to protect them.
“We’re supposed to make sure kids are healthy, safe, supported, challenged and engaged,” Putro told The Buckeye Flame. “You can’t make sure that kids are healthy and safe if we’re welcoming an extremist ideology.”
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Putro recalled approaching a board member and asking about their policy on one of the new laws, and said, “This board member had no idea what I was talking about.”
The legislation that most concerns Putro is the state’s so-called “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which took effect on April 9, 2025, and requires schools to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents. It also allows parents to opt their children out of “sexuality content” at school, which it defines as “any oral or written instruction, presentation, image, or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology provided in a classroom setting,” with exceptions granted for STI and abuse discussion, as well as “incidental references” to sexual concepts or “gender ideology.”
There is also a total ban on “sexuality content” in grades three and below, with all other grades facing a requirement for parental review of the content. It additionally requires notification of “any substantial change” in student services, defined as including changes to one’s gender identity in the school system.
Honesty for Mahoning Valley Education held a panel discussion on July 11 that included folks from the LGBTQ+ student advocacy organization, Glisten. Putro said it was not crowded, but that the small number of people in attendance were engaged. The group is next holding an open meeting on July 30.
The Movement Advancement Project scores Ohio at 1.75 out of 49 for overall LGBTQ+ rights, with a negative 3 out of 26 for rights surrounding gender identity. The state bans trans people from using public bathrooms that align with their gender identity and legally defines gender based on biological sex. In addition to the state’s forced outing law, trans youth are also banned from participating in sports as their gender. The state also bans best-practice medical care for trans youth.
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