Mimi Shelton
2:53:06
I'm going right on into it.
2:53:07
My name is Mimi Shelton.
2:53:11
I'm a black woman of transgender experience.
2:53:14
Although I am currently a law student at the CUNY School of Law, I have a professional background in research, direct service work, grant management, and education.
2:53:24
Specifically, I was a middle school English and history teacher in Philadelphia and New York Schools for four and a half years, before, of course, my pivot.
2:53:34
The lack of comprehensive knowledge around gender and sexual identity in schools stagnates the maturation and intellectual development of youth, shrinking their world views in schools up to sexual heterosexual and cisgender norms that often lead those questioning their sexual or gender identities into a mindset of inferiority.
2:53:57
For cisgender heterosexual youth, this absence of education allows them to model the behavior of dominant society that bullies, isolates, depreciates, attacks, and attempts to erase transgender and queer people from existence in professional, academic, and social space.
2:54:17
It stagnates their critical thinking abilities and stops them from seeing a world of people who have, do, and will continue to exist outside of their miseducation.
2:54:30
And there is much to learn and we as queer and trans people are more than HIV and sexuality.
2:54:39
According to the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network's 2021 National Climate Survey, queer and transgender youth frequently face compounded sexist, transphobic, and homophobic discrimination that leads to poor mental health outcomes, worse academic performance, physical assault, verbal assault, sexual assault, absenteeism, and higher dropout rates.
2:55:02
These rates are disparately higher among BIPOC transgender youth, especially those who are black.
2:55:08
As a black transgender woman, I know all too well that educational discrimination and lack of access does not stop at the schoolhouse door.
2:55:17
Take for example, the transgender New Yorkers and the New York Department of Labor's 2023 transgender and gender nonconforming non binary report, TGNC and B reports.
2:55:28
I'll spare you details for other statistics, but one of the most startling for me is that 33.1% of transgender New Yorkers did not graduate from high school as opposed to 12.3% of cisgender New Yorkers, which could explain why in the same report, the DOL found that the rate of under unemployment for transgender New Yorkers is over twice that of cisgender individuals throughout the state.
2:55:53
I am here today to support Quadira Coles and Girls For Gender Equity as they lead this work at the city and state level.
2:56:00
As a former teacher, future lawyer, and passionate advocate for transgender and queer youth, I'm invested in the present lack of inclusive gender and sexual identity education.
2:56:12
Youth learn to model the world around them in schools, and they perpetuate these models of behavior throughout their adult lives.
2:56:20
I cannot stand by without fighting against the future for all youth that would devalue the lives, histories, stories, and deservedness of transgender and queer people.
2:56:30
Therefore, I urge you to please approve resolution 94 to ensure that the NYC DOE is not erasing some of our most vulnerable, marginalized young people and then pass these and other information requesting resolutions to provide us with data to prove who is being unfairly punished.
2:56:49
This will allow us to make targeted interventions in schools to limit harm to students.
2:56:54
Students can't learn in schools when they don't feel safe and seen at school.
2:56:58
Thank you for your time.
