New Mexico Teachers Organize Rainbow Contingent in Pride Parade

Jamie Shelton can’t prove that someone shot out her windshield because of her eighth-grade Queer History curriculum a few years ago, but she has a hunch. The father of one of her students had been so irate about the material that he threatened to beat her up, and co-workers started walking her to her car.

In her 15 years in the classroom in Albuquerque, New Mexico, principals have asked her to park across the street from the school because of a rainbow decal on her car, misgendered her, called her homophobic names, and left religious texts in her school mailbox.

Last fall the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, an AFT affiliate representing 6,200 educators, mobilized around school board races. The union characterized the effort as “retaking our school board” from conservative members who were promoting homophobic and transphobic policies.

People involved in the local chapter of Moms for Liberty had campaigned heavily in the 2021 elections, and their chosen candidates had won. Moms for Liberty, classified as a far-right organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has led initiatives nationally to remove books from libraries that discuss or celebrate gay and trans people and racial diversity.

“They were spreading lies about queer teachers ‘grooming’ young people,” Shelton said. “Harmful stuff.” The union, with help from national organizations including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, helped beat two Moms for Liberty-supported candidates in 2023. The union-backed candidate in one race won by a whopping 82 percent, and in the other race unseated a longtime incumbent.

Seeing the political ground lost and gained in recent years at the local level convinced Shelton, now on staff with the union, that ATF could be doing more. She and another union staffer, Will Whiteman, attended the Labor Notes Conference in April and were inspired to organize members into action.

They knew exactly how to start: the upcoming Albuquerque Pride Day.

’KIDS NEED TO SEE THEMSELVES IN US’

In the past, the union had turned out a handful of attendees who might wear a union T-shirt and hold a printed teachers union sign. This year, educators wanted to do more to protect themselves, their colleagues, and their students from the book bans and other attacks on public schools and services.

“Organizing around our queer teachers is vital,” Shelton said. “Kids need to see themselves in us.”

New Mexico is an anomaly in the Southwest. The laws aren’t as anti-union as in its neighbors Texas and Arizona; New Mexicans have collective bargaining rights in the public sector. ATF has over 65 percent voluntary union membership, and provides professional development, thorough new-member orientations, recruitment drives, bargaining campaigns, and school board election work.

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Shelton and Whiteman took to heart the sessions they attended at the Labor Notes. “We felt deeply connected to the power of democracy” as described by other red-state educators locals like the San Antonio Alliance, Shelton said. They heard “the need for minorities in the community to be brought in [as leaders], not to be spoken to.”

So, with about a month until the event, they invited members to a brainstorming session for a Pride Art Build to design signs and banners for the parade. A dozen folks showed up to talk about which LGBTQ issues and messaging resonated with them, as union members and as educators. They also discussed how to keep the energy going after Pride by creating a permanent committee within the union.

Tia Hicks, a high school math teacher, said she hasn’t experienced discrimination as a newer queer educator, but she feels the tenuousness of her position. “We live in a very Democratic city, while educators in most states aren’t allowed to be queer and proud,” she said. “With Texas and Oklahoma next to us, we want to keep it that way.”

And while gay and lesbian students are gaining more widespread acceptance in Albuquerque public schools, Hicks said it still seems harder for her students who are transgender or “visibly queer.”

MANY HANDS PAINT BANNER

Thirty people came to the next art build to work on the banner design they had previously discussed, covered in rainbow hearts and union logos. Hands of different skin tones reach up holding books like My Shadow Is Purple, a children’s book about gender, and a title by the Black lesbian poet and activist Audre Lorde. The art build was followed by a community barbecue.

The members led the way on the planning, supported by Whiteman and Shelton, who turned people out with phone calls and in-person conversations.

ATF had a great turnout: 71 members and their families marched in the Albuquerque Pride event. Members wore new ATF shirts with a rainbow logo, and were decked out in rainbow parasols, colorful outfits, face paint, and lots of handmade signs with slogans like “APS teachers are here and queer!” and “¡Apoyo a todxs mis estudiantes!” (“I support all my students” in Spanish).

The most powerful moment for Hicks came when she was approached by a former student whom she didn’t recognize at first. They turned out to be a student who had later come out as trans. Hicks felt enormous pride to see them living as their authentic self and to be able to march in community alongside them. “It was so cool seeing so many students exist in a space where they can be who they are,” she said. “I get to be a voice for those students and I have a full support system standing behind me [in the union].”

After Pride, nine new members signed up to join the Federation right away.

Shelton is enthusiastic about this new energy in the union, where members are turning to ATF and each other for the issues that matter to them at home and at work. Next up is another issue top of mind in this border-state community: immigrant rights.