Opinion: Will Amherst Schools Ever Be Safe for Queer and Trans Kids?

This is the third article in a five-part series that the LGBTQIA+ Caucus of Amherst has prepared for Pride Month, 2026. The Indy will publish one piece each week during the month of June. Look here and here for the first two articles in the series.

This was supposed to be an article celebrating a Pride Month assembly the LGBTQIA+ Caucus of Amherst organized for Amherst Regional Middle School (ARMS) on June 9, but just one day after the event it is proving challenging to write, given the ways circumstances have shifted in the 24 hours following the assembly. This piece describes both the assembly and what has transpired since.

The Pride Month Assembly at Amherst Regional Middle School
At the beginning of Pride month, the LGBTQIA+ Caucus decorated several bulletin boards at ARMS to welcome students and create messages of Pride. The caucus also worked with the Amherst Regional Middle School administration and PGO to organize a Pride Month assembly centered on expressions of Queer joy in the form of music, dance, poetry, and a trivia game led by the world’s most fabulous game show host, Bella Santarella.

On Tuesday morning, ROAR (Rainbow Organizing and Response) volunteers holding rainbow umbrellas stood outside the school blowing bubbles and playing music to welcome students as they arrived. Later, they joined the assembly and set a celebratory tone for the event. As the middle schoolers found their seats, they were serenaded by the Queer Joy Chorus, who repeated the lyrics, “cause they did not give it, they cannot take it away, joy, unspeakable joy, in my heart so I won’t let them steal my…” The music crescendoed until everyone was seated and ready to begin.

Students affiliated with the middle school’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA) club and the middle school chorus participated in the assembly, along with guest performers: Bella Santarella, the Queer Joy Chorus (a program of the Queer Joy Collaborative), and two slam poets from UMass Amherst’s competitive spoken-word team, Slamherst — Joel Blandon (he/him) and Kai Treadway (they/she/he). Throughout the fifty-minute assembly the students and staff in attendance at the Amherst Regional Middle School honored the contributions of the performers and joined them in celebrating queer and trans identities. The auditorium was full of attentive and enthusiastic students — enjoying the performances, cheering on their friends, and experiencing and expressing joy in many forms.

Caucus spokesperson Ali Wicks-Lim described the intention behind the organizing of the assembly this way: “Kids are hearing a lot these days about all the challenges the LGBTQIA+ community is facing. They may not be hearing enough about the beauty, creativity, resilience and joy within queer and trans communities. For this assembly we just wanted it to feel great to witness and experience queer joy, which is in itself a powerful form of resistance.”

The Caucus would like to thank all of the performers and volunteers who took the time to bring their incredible energy and commitment to this special event. We would also like to express appreciation to the administration for their support of the event and most of all to the brave, powerful and fabulous students who helped plan and create it. Each of these leaders showed up in important ways to help make this assembly possible and to demonstrate that leadership can be allyship.

What Happened Next
Unfortunately, the day prior to the assembly, signs appeared at the school entrance advertising an end-of-year school celebration that many students — particularly LGBTQIA+ students — could not safely access. The sign did not indicate a place or time for the celelbration and it required students to get information and admission passes by connecting with a staff member for whom many have no contact orders because of this person’s documented actions that harmed LGBTQIA+ students. The caucus first became aware of the flyers on June 8, and a message was sent to the administration with concerns about its exclusionary nature. No response was received. 

An end-of-year celebration for students should not feel this complicated, but the current dynamics within the Middle School present a unique set of challenges. If any group were holding an event that was only for a specific club or activity, they’d communicate with the members of that group and no further advertising would be necessary. If an event were being held for the entire school, typically a flyer would simply list a time and place and indicate what group(s) of students are invited. Posting flyers without those details and requiring students to obtain a ticket from a specific staff member who some students, particularly LGBTQIA+ students, cannot communicate with safely, creates a barrier to access.

Throughout the year, students and staff have repeatedly observed this staff member providing privileges, snacks, games, and prizes to some students in the presenece of other students who have no contact orders for her. Advertising a party with treats and a “SURPRISE!” while knowing that some students will be unable to participate or whose participation would place them in an uncomfortable position is disruptive and discriminatory and not in the best interest of all students, and in particular LGBTQIA+ students. 

The lines around who was and wasn’t invited are blurry. What was advertised as a party for students belonging to the club Scholars on the Move, ended up including students from the club People of Color United (POCU) as well. Some students were invited and were unsure of why because they were not affiliated with either group. Other students expressed wanting to attend because they were part of POCU, but wished the event had not been connected to the staff member for whom many LGBTQIA+ students have no-contact orders.  The inequity of this party was amplified by the confusing ways it was organized. 

To find out the time and location, students were required to contact a staff member with a documented history of harmful interactions with queer and trans students, and one from whom some families have obtained no-contact orders to protect their children. Students who were not on the list approved by this staff member were denied entry to the event. The LGBTQIA+ Caucus advocated vigorously for these issues to be addressed, but the event proceeded as planned, resulting in a lunch period during which some students attended a private party with special snacks and activities while others had their regular lunch in plain view of a celebration they could not safely attend. Queer or trans students also affiliated with POCU, which appeared to co-sponsor the event, were faced with the reality that participation in one club celebration put them in proximity to a person they were supposed to have no contact with. LGBTQIA+ students were faced with an impossible choice: attend an event organized by someone they did not feel safe around, or exclude themselves from the celebration. Neither option supports students’ sense of belonging. 

We spoke with several students about this event. They said that students only get special privileges if they’re this staff member’s friend; they told us that they don’t feel good about talking to her. They talked to us about the complexity of being in a space where some kids are able to be around an adult and some aren’t — how do they honor their friends but also do something that sounds fun? Several students described feeling conflicted about attending because they wanted to participate in the celebration and enjoy the activities, but did not feel comfortable interacting with the organizer. They were acutely aware of the tension between wanting to be included and wanting to maintain boundaries they believed were important for their own wellbeing. 

A Response from the LGBTQIA+ Caucus
In response, the caucus has written the following statement:

The district cannot publicly celebrate LGBTQIA+ students and allyship in one moment and then, within hours, permit actions that undermine the very sense of safety and belonging that the assembly was intended to celebrate.

This is not a disagreement about bulletin boards or competing events. It is a matter of governance, credibility, and trust. Given the years of community effort that have gone into rebuilding trust after failures that caused profound harm to queer and trans students and their families, this is deeply disappointing.

The caucus understood that an agreement had been reached that competing displays or programming would not be present around Pride Month materials during June so as not to signal alignment between Pride and events that might not be safe or healthy for LGBTQIA+ students. Based on what we observed yesterday and today, that agreement was not honored.

More importantly, we are concerned about the impact of this misalignment of messaging on students. The central message of the Pride assembly was that LGBTQ+ students belong, are valued, and deserve to feel safe in their school community. Yet students were simultaneously directed toward an activity that required engagement with a staff member from whom some students have no-contact orders. Regardless of intent, that creates an inherently unequal situation in which some students cannot safely access the same opportunities as their peers. In this case there were special snacks and games attached to the opportunity and it was in close proximity to the students who could not participate, a scenario that would be difficult for most middle-schoolers. The administration was aware of these factors and allowed the event to continue as organized.

When the district publicly affirms that LGBTQIA+ students belong and are safe, those commitments must be reflected in practice. Otherwise, the message becomes contradictory, trust is eroded, and the district risks repeating the very mistakes it has spent years attempting to repair.

The Amherst LGBTQIA+ Caucus was formed because students and families raised serious concerns about safety, belonging, and equitable treatment. We have appreciated the school administration’s willingness to engage with those concerns in good faith and to help move the district forward. For that reason, this situation is particularly troubling.We had hoped the district’s response to this event would have reflected the same commitment to student safety, inclusion, and accountability that it publicly endorsed just 24 hours earlier.

Ongoing Concerns About the District’s Support of Queer and Trans Students
One day after organizing a powerful Pride assembly, organizers find themselves asking a difficult question: did we set students up for disappointment? The lack of alignment between the messages of the assembly and their experience at school the following day was palpable.

The assembly was still valuable. Exposure to queer and trans culture — the music, the poetry, the joy — has real value in students’ lives beyond school walls, and that value doesn’t disappear. Unfortunately, we continue to have significant concerns about their safety and wellbeing at school, and we wish we had not tied those messages to a place that will not protect them.

Symbols matter. Pride celebrations matter. Messages of allyship matter. But they matter because they are supposed to represent something real. When institutions publicly signal safety, belonging, and inclusion, students should be able to trust that those communications will be reflected in practice.

Because we were aware of the exclusionary nature of some of the organizing taking place, caucus members made it clear to the administration that if those messages were to be posted alongside our Pride decorations we would need to remove our Pride decorations so as not to signal alignment or safety to queer and trans kids. On the day after the assembly, when the decorations and information about this event moved into the main areas of the school, the caucus made the difficult decision to remove the Pride Month decorations we’d posted throughout the Middle School for the following reasons:

• Based on the events described above, the caucus does not currently believe Amherst Regional Middle School is providing a safe and affirming environment for LGBTQIA+ students. 

• Celebrating Pride Month while failing to protect queer and trans kids is disingenuous and dangerous. It is a safety issue to flag allyship where it doesn’t exist.
  
• It is the responsibility of queer adults not to flag a place as safe if it is not safe. We need to model for the kids that the truth is more important than what feels good or comfortable.
  
• We had been clear from the beginning that the Pride decorations were intended to create a welcoming and queer/trans-affirming space. Once the exclusionary event was allowed to be advertised and held in a way that excluded students and jeopardized their sense of belonging, ARMS ceased to be a welcoming and affirming space for LGBTQIA+ people. The administration was made aware of this before the decorations were removed and had the opportunity to choose to address the issue of the exclusionary event, but they did not.

There were some staff members who struggled with that last point as they saw the bulletin boards coming down. They expressed that it will be sad for students not to see them anymore, and that we signal defeat by removing them. We imagine some parents may feel the same way. We want to be clear that removing the bulletin boards was heartbreaking for us as well, but the truth, no matter how uncomfortable, matters. And the truth is that much like three years ago (see also here) – adults are failing to hold boundaries around problem behavior, and vulnerable kids are paying the price.

We agree that it is a prettier picture to have rainbows and positive messages of allyship in the hallways. It also comes with a responsibility to LGBTQIA+ people that ARMS is not willing to meet at this time. When the experiences of queer and trans students do not align with public messages about safety and inclusion, projecting that image risks undermining trust and creating confusion about where students can expect support. The lack of alignment is not healthy or safe for kids, and they can feel it.

Our message to those who are disappointed to see the signs come down: channel that feeling into action. Speak out. Organize. Push the administration to align its policies and practices with the allyship it publicly claims — so that one day the rainbows can go back up and mean something.

If you have concerns you’d like to share with the administration please write to the principal of the middle school, Juan Rodriguez, at rodriguezja@arps.org and Superintendent Dr. E. Xiomara Herman (Dr. Xi) at hermanx@arps.org.

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This article is a collective effort of members of the LGBTQIA+ Caucus of Amherst.

The LGBTQIA+ Caucus of Amherst is a grassroots group formed in the fall of 2023 in response to a clear need to push for transparency, accountability, and equity from the local administration, and to mobilize greater advocacy and support for queer and trans students.  The Caucus works with the community, including Amherst Regional Public Schools staff and administration to identify and meet the needs of LGBTQIA+ students. To protect its members from potential retaliation and intimidation within the community, the Caucus operates with an anonymous membership structure relying on a  designated spokesperson for public communication. Caucus spokesperson Ali Wicks-Lim (they/them) can be contacted at CaucusLGBTQIA@gmail.com.