Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

UPDATE – It is Thursday night about 9 PM. We’ve raised enough to send one full box and need just $350 to send the second box. Will we be able to do it before the end of the #DayOfSilence? That’s up to you … (scroll down for donations links)

We kicked off a crowdfund blitz to distribute #ProtectTransKids signs near the Trans Day of Visibility. We’ve raised over $3000 to get signs into City of Butler, Fox Chapel, McCandless, Brookline, Carnegie, and Washington, PA. This week, we are focusing on Friday’s ‘Day of Silence’ and trying to get two boxes (100 signs total) into Pittsburgh Public Schools. The GSA advisors and students will determine how to distribute them. Some teachers put them in classrooms, others display in their own neighborhoods. Same with students.

You see what’s happening across Pennsylvania schools in Bucks County, York County, Franklin County, and Warren County as well as closer to home in Westmoreland and Beaver counties – all school districts struggling over calls for book bans, rescinding trans affirming policies, pulling nondiscrimination policies, even lawsuits about teachers using appropriate pronouns.

We plan to send signs to those communities as well, but we need to start here at home and make sure each of PPS’s 50 buildings has access to the signs they want/need.

If you are an educator or parent, you can help us accomplish this and bring signs into your own districts as well.

Ask the PTA, ask a local business to contribute. Volunteer to distribute signs yourself from your porch, your basement, your car.

Important Points

• We do have relationships with PPS, teachers, parents, students, staff, union, etc. This idea is informed by people who know what is best in their school, not by this blogger or our organization or anyone else.
• No teacher is required to put up a sign in their classroom or their personal residence. Or anything except follow their own school policies.
• Students wanted us to create bracelets for schools, but we cannot find a silicone bracelet with the Progressive Pride flag base. Sigh.
• Students love the stickers and pens. More affirmations on more products = more visibility and awareness.

Anyone can request a free sign at bit.ly/ProtectTransKidsSigns – and anyone interested in bringing a full batch of 50 signs to their community can reach out to set that up.

We need about $1300 to meet this latest goal. Whatever we raise by the Day of Silence will go to this. After paying for the signs to send to Washington County, we have $100 toward this new goal.

Thank you for reading. Please donate what you can. Please share the crowdfund on your FB profile and use the “invite” feature to connect directly with parents, educators, and neighbors in your school.

Request a sign AND stickers bit.ly/ProtectsTransKidsSigns

• GoFundMe bit.ly/YardSignsFund 
• Venmo @PittsburghLGBTQ
• Paypal bit.ly/PayPalPLC
• Facebook.com/PittsburghLGBTQ – Click on Donation
• Facebook Crowdfund
• Checks made payable to ‘Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities’ and mailed to 1439 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15233.