Look to LGBTQ children for courage

Many use the word courage when someone has performed an act of bravery or a dangerous deed. Which is true, at times. But recently, some of the most courageous people have been at our state’s Capitol. And no, I am not speaking of our state’s elected leaders — far from it.

I’m speaking to the young people who know Iowa should be a welcoming place. Who have shown up time and again in front of powerful adults in committee hearings who are writing legislation to erase their existence and tell them all the ways they are wrong and don’t fit neatly into the label male or female.

Courage looks like a 12-year-old begging to keep books on the shelf so they can see themselves represented in writing like their straight peers. Kids are courageously showing up and speaking truth to power to the 21 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed here in Iowa, while the adults in power want to divide us and hide behind hateful rhetoric from dark money groups like Moms for Liberty and Advancing American Freedom.

Imagine the Iowa we could have if our Republican lawmakers had courage. The courage to stand up for what is right for all kids, the courage to protect our LGBTQ kids, and the courage to do right by our public schools. Let’s hope that those in Des Moines working on this legislation can muster up an ounce of the courage these young people have and vote no on these hateful and harmful anti-LGBTQ bills.

Amy Adams

St. Lucas

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