Road to 2024—LGBTQ Kids Under Attack: Elliot's Story
Leading up to the 2024 Presidential election, Uncloseted Media is featuring the voices of LGBTQ kids from various states where queer kids rights are under attack. This is Elliot's story.
On May 21, 2024, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed a bill that bans health care providers from providing gender affirming care of any kind to anyone under the age of 18. It also forces all school staff members to report a student’s wish to change their pronouns or identifiers to their parents, effectively outing trans and gender non-conforming students. This bill joins South Carolina’s Save Women’s Sports Act which bans transgender girls from participating in girl’s sports and a trans bathroom act that prohibits trans students from grades K–12 from using the restroom or locker room that aligns with their gender identity.
These bills, coupled with national anti-trans rhetoric, have made South Carolina a hostile place for LGBTQ youth. In 2022, the Trevor Project found that 50 percent of LGBTQ youth in South Carolina have seriously considered suicide in the past year, including 58 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth. In schools, more than two out of three LGBTQ students in South Carolina have experienced at least one form of anti-LGBTQ discrimination according to GLSEN.
In an interview with Uncloseted Media, Elliot Naddell, a 17-year-old trans man who lives in Columbia, S.C., speaks about the highs and lows of being queer in his senior year in one of his state’s biggest high schools. Less than a month into his senior year, he says his queer crew of friends mean everything to him, especially given the hostile environment created by so many South Carolina legislators. Elliot will turn 18 on Oct. 8, less than a month before the Presidential election, and “can’t wait” to vote for his very first time time.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
How do you feel about starting your final year in high school? As a gay trans man, how is it going?
I think I've definitely come pretty far since my freshman year. Just in terms of, like, coming into my identity and gaining self confidence. I've never been a particularly shy person but I feel like I'm really, just about to enter the real world. I'm almost getting there.
What is it like being out in South Carolina? How has it been at school?
Well, I go to the biggest school in our district. There's nearly 2,500 students at our one high school. So there's a lot of space for queer students. I'm a part of the theater program, and the majority of us are queer in some way. And I consider myself really lucky that I haven't faced a lot of discrimination specifically from my peers. You know, all the insecurity I have about my classmates not perceiving me the way I want to be perceived is, like, internal. I've never had a real, like, majorly transphobic experience where someone voiced transphobia or homophobia to me. I think it's a lot better to be queer now, but it's also pretty scary that it might get a lot worse.
What do you mean when you say you're worried it could get a lot worse?
So like 3 or 4 years ago, I basically called it that transphobia and the transgender people were going to be the next target of discrimination. In my opinion, Republicans cycle through categories of discrimination. When it becomes less socially acceptable to be racist towards black people, they become racist towards immigrants. And when it becomes less acceptable to be racist in general, they turn towards transphobia. It's not that anyone is less racist than they were, it's just that transphobia has become a major focus of discrimination in general.
I read Project 2025 and it's like, ‘Oh, crap. They might remove my access to transgender care.’
You go to the biggest school in your district. 2,500 kids. That's huge. What is the overarching feeling when it comes to being LGBTQ among people your age?
Having such a big school it’s kind of hard to clock the general opinion of most people. It's not like everyone is, you know, gay allies going to pride all that kind of stuff. I've definitely seen some passive queerphobia.
Like what?
I had an auto tech class last year, and I was the only person in the whole class with like 16 students who was born and perceived as female and the only queer student.
There was one day in class where these boys were sitting in front of me and they were showing each other a picture of a girl on Instagram and kept saying, “oh, that's a dude. Like, that's not a girl, that's a dude. She looks like a dude”. And I'm fairly certain it was a cisgender girl, but, you know, they were making fun of her for her masculine jaw shape. I was like, ‘Oh, great. That's fun.’
So, you know, I generally kept to myself in that class because it didn't feel like a space that I was supposed to be in. I definitely didn't feel welcome in it.
How did that make you feel?
Honestly, disgusted. I texted my friend and I was like, ‘that is gross behavior and I don't want to be in this room anymore.’
Are there any other examples?
I have teachers who never get my pronouns correct. But I don't think it's malicious.
How does it make you feel when people, teachers—even if you know they might not be meaning to—forget or don't use the correct pronouns for you?
I have one teacher who I emailed before school started and I was like, ‘these are my pronouns.’ And he tried to use pronouns for me three times, messed up every time, and then reverted to calling me by my name instead. And I was like, ‘okay, you are probably one of the smartest human beings in this building, and pronouns are hard?’ I was in this class for eight or nine months and thought to myself, ‘you can't get they instead of she or he?’ I mess up too. But at some point, you know, I've been here for a while, man!
As a a kid in school now, do you feel like you have a great group of friends? What's that like?
Queer kids generally gravitate to each other just like in general. My group of friends in middle school was all queer. And the people I generally hang out with in high school are queer. I have a main core group of about like five people. We call ourselves the Fungal Infection. I don't know where it came from, but it's what we've been calling ourselves for two years. We’re people and mushrooms. Laughs.
How do you feel outside of school when it comes to the politics in your state right now?
All of the good queer vibes at school come from my queer classmates who are existing as themselves and doing their best to live life in high school. But there was that bill that passed into law which limited all access to gender affirming care for people under the age of 18. And if a student expresses they would like to be called a name that is not on their birth certificate or does not match with their assigned gender or if they express to the teacher that they'd like to be called different pronouns, the teacher has to inform the parents. It's the same bill that limits care and forces teachers to out students.
I got the whole lecture from my art teacher last week. I was like, ‘hey, you know, my name is Elliot.’ These are my pronouns. And she was like, ‘okay, but you know, if you want me to call you that, I have to reach out to your parents.’ Good thing I have supportive parents because otherwise that would be really bad.
How do you feel outside of school when it comes to the politics in your state right now?
It's hard to kind of feel safe out in public. I have a lot of my friends who put queer stickers and decorations on their cars. And I'm like, ‘Well, I like my car's windows intact.
Like if I put a transgender flag in my car it's very possible that someone would ruin my car just by virtue of me being queer.’ It's scary. It's really scary.
I can hear you feeling emotional. How does it make you feel?
Scared and angry. I’ve had a lot of worry that I wasn’t going to be able to access gender affirming care once I turned 18. I'm in therapy. I'm hoping to get that gender dysphoria diagnosis to start as soon as possible. But my 18th birthday is like a month before the election and it's almost like a race against the clock.
I've been working on writing a letter about the bill that passed because what else am I supposed to do? It’s all these legislators that are passing all these bills, I didn't vote for them. I couldn't vote for them. They're not going to listen to me. In June I went to a school board meeting to talk about the removal of AP African-American Studies. I looked our School Board Head in the eye and I could tell she was making this nice listening face like she was paying attention to what I had to say. And I could tell that it wasn't going to change her mind at all.
What about Book Bans? Have they affected your ability to read, to be educated or is it just more of a distraction or not an annoyance?
There are students who are queer, who experienced racism, who experienced sexual assault. And if these topics aren't available in libraries, how are they supposed to know anything about them?
The objective should not be to remove that book from the library, but it should be to make the library a safe space to discuss it. It exists in the world. There's no such thing as protecting children from these topics, at least not anymore with the internet. So we should stop trying to hide these books from children and instead make a safe space to recognize the topic and discuss it in a way that is safe for children. A lack of education is never a good thing. It's always a bad thing.
It's obviously not just limited to your state. Trump has said we need to stop this “transgender insanity,” right? How does that make you feel as a trans kid in the United States right now?
It makes me feel like they don't want me here. I'm born and raised as an American citizen. My dad was in the Air Force for 23 years.
I've spent my life around die hard patriots, you know? I would love to love my country and love the place that I live. But I feel like they see me as, like, something that shouldn't exist.
Like if you're not a straight, white, cisgender man, you're not an American.
We're trapped by all this doom and terror and I'm just trying to live my life. I'm trying to go to college and have fun. It's really hard to do that when this thought exists that it might not be safe for me in this country in like three months.
You're going to turn 18 a month before the election, so what's your plan to vote?
Yes, I registered to vote as soon as the midterms were over. I'm voting blue all down the ballot because they're the ones that don't want me dead, I'm not voting for Trump. I'm not an idiot. I like living.
I'm really glad that you have a support system and that your mental health is in relatively good shape in spite of the circumstances for trans people right now.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out a few weeks ago that found that over 40 percent of LGBTQ kids seriously considered suicide in the last year. Why do you think that this stat is so high in 2024, given that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are some of the most accepting generations?
It's the anti-trans laws that they pass in schools. It forces teachers to out students to their parents. If that hasn't actually killed children already, I would be shocked. If a student is closeted in a transphobic household, then if that student is forcibly outed to their parents and suddenly the place where they live becomes insanely hostile and dangerous and kids get kicked out. It's like, of course that many kids have considered suicide.
What was the statistic that was floating around a few years ago that like 20 to 23 percent of all transgender people kill themselves? It's not safe here. If America was a place where it was safe [for trans people] to live, they'd still be living.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Hotline. Other support hotlines.
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Thank you, Elliot, for your courage and honesty. We appreciate your vulnerability and wish you an awesome senior year :)
Proud of you and love you, Elliot Naddell! Keep up the good fight!