LGBTQ+ youth are not safe at Bellmont High School in Decatur, Indiana. Due to lack of education, a gym teacher, Kathy Enterline, has repeatedly harassed a trans student and Principal Almas and Vice-Principal Schlemmer are letting this slide and have even made transphobic remarks to the student, such as “It doesn’t matter how you ‘identify’, because as of now , you’re not a male student.“ The peak of Mrs. Enterline’s harassment towards this student was prompted by said student using the men’s restroom. Bellmont has put restrictions on trans students, such as lack of proper bathrooms, changing rooms, education of the staff, etc.

Lack of education, especially, is a huge problem at this school. The aforementioned student told Mrs. Enterline that they use they/he pronouns, and Mrs. Enterline’s response to this was “They is not singular. They means two”. This is in fact, not true. And even after the student mentioned that he also uses he/him pronouns (because Mrs. Enterline refused to even try to use they/them pronouns), Mrs. Enterline refused to use those pronouns as well, stating “ You’re not a boy, and I won’t use those for you”. Mrs. Enterline also refuses to use this student’s name, and even shouted their deadname out on purpose in front of an entire class. Mrs. Enterline has made multiple excuses/arguments, such as “they/them is plural", "it’s not normal", "I won’t remember", and "I’ll call you by your last name", however, none of these excuses make up for what Mrs. Enterline has done. Mrs. Enterline needs to be held accountable for her actions, and educated on why and how what she is doing is wrong. 

Unfortunately, discrimination towards LGBTQ+ youth in school isn’t a one time thing, at Bellmont, or any other school. This has happened with many generations of students and many different teachers, but yet, nothing is being done about it at many schools including Bellmont. The school has put no effort into protecting LGBTQ+ youth, as kids of all gender and sexual identities have been harassed at Bellmont. This isn’t even the first time Mrs. Enterline has done something like this, as she has said homophobic and transphobic things to multiple people besides the student that was mentioned before and will continue to if something doesn’t change. Bellmont High School needs to start putting more effort into protecting the LGBTQ+ youth. The student mentioned previously requested to meet with Principal Almas and Vice-Principal Schlemmer to discuss these issues, but the meeting was canceled due to being deemed "not important enough". This is not true, as acceptance and support in the school system is suicide prevention, and we are not being given this acceptance and support at Bellmont. We are asking that the board of administration makes sure that restrictions for trans youth are at least eased, if not removed, and that Bellmont takes these sorts of issues seriously, protects LGBTQ+ people at our school and educates students and staff on these issues and how they can be harmful.