ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Last August, just before 16-year-old Milo was about to start his senior year of high school, North Carolina enacted a law restricting how gender identity and sexual orientation are taught and treated in public schools.
For the transgender teen, that meant that last school year, his Latin teacher stopped asking students about their preferred names and pronouns.
“It would have been more dangerous to do so than not to do so,” said Milo, who asked that her last name not be published due to safety concerns.
Conservative lawmakers who pushed the law (whose first provision is titled the “Parents' Bill of Rights”) argued that it was necessary to give parents more control over their children's education and mental health. Critics have compared the bill to Florida's so-called “Don't Say Gay” law, arguing that it unfairly targets the LGBTQ community, particularly queer kids.
North Carolina's law, Senate Bill 49, goes further than Florida's by requiring educators to notify parents if a student requests to be called by a different name or pronoun. Some opponents of the bill say this provision effectively requires educators to “come out” gay or transgender kids to their parents.
Now, one school year into the law's implementation, LGBTQ students, parents and activists across the state say SB 49 has prevented teachers from offering support to queer kids, further encouraged bullying and created a hostile learning environment.
Asked for comment, North Carolina Department of Education spokesperson Blair Rose referred NBC News to the bill's sponsors and noted that the law advises educators not to inform parents of a student's desire to change pronouns or name if they “reasonably believe that disclosure would expose the child to abuse or neglect.”
The group of state senators who introduced the bill – Sens. Lisa Burns, Michael Lee and Amy Ghaly – did not respond to requests for comment.
“Teaching about gender identity, sexuality and sexuality has no place in the K-4 curriculum,” Ghaly said at a press conference before the State Board of Education voted on the bill in February. “Teachers should not be the ones deciding when it is appropriate to discuss these topics with our youngest and most impressionable children.”
Noah, a 13-year-old transgender middle school student from Asheville, asked that his last name not be published out of safety concerns, and said he wanted to try using “he/him” pronouns and a new name two years ago. He believed his parents would be supportive, but he wanted to transition at school first because “I wanted to try it out and see if it was right for me.”
“I actually said to my teacher, 'Can I use my dead name and she/her pronouns in front of my parents until I'm ready?'” Noah said, recalling her name before she transitioned. “Looking back, if that law had existed, I probably would have been exposed.”
Milo and Noah, who say they have supportive parents, worry about the lack of support for LGBTQ students in the state.
“I have friends who, whether they were forced to come out or they came out to their parents, would have been kicked out of their homes if their parents found out they were transgender,” Milo said, adding that school may have previously been one of the few safe spaces they could have found.
The teenager and another LGBTQ student who spoke to NBC News said they were shocked that state lawmakers were following in the footsteps of Florida, which has enacted a similar law in 2022.
“My first thought was, 'That's terrible. I'm glad this didn't happen here,'” said Isaac, a 17-year-old Asheville high school student who asked that his last name not be used out of safety concerns. “I thought this was so outrageous, I could never do it. I felt like I was going crazy.”
Now that the law has been enacted in his state, Isaac worries about the trickle-down effect.
“Kids can be cruel, and teenagers love to use the word 'gay' as an insult,” Isaac said, “and I think a law like this makes the state complicit in that. It opens the door to denigrating queer students.”
Craig White, schools advocacy director for the North Carolina-based Campaign for Southern Equality, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said he believes the wave of such measures in states across the country is part of a broader strategy by conservatives.
He contrasted the introduction of the education bill with the state's passage of the transgender “bathroom bill,” HB2, in 2016. The then-unprecedented law sparked a national uproar and led to well-known musicians, corporations and elite sports associations boycotting the state. The law was repealed in 2017.
“What the right has learned from that is that these laws don't happen one state at a time,” White said. “That's why you're seeing these laws happening in 12 states, even 20 states at once, because you can't boycott half the country.”
While there has been no national backlash against SB 49, White suggested the law and similar legislation have drawn pushback at the local level.
“People are fighting hard to keep the culture war out of their kids' classrooms, and parents are becoming a lot more politically involved than they used to be,” he said.
The Southern Equality Campaign filed a federal lawsuit against North Carolina in January, alleging that the public schools “systematically marginalize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students in violation of Title IX.” The lawsuit is currently pending trial, White said. Isaac was one of dozens of students, parents and educators who testified in the 113-page complaint.
Three young people who spoke to NBC News said that despite their frustration with last year's changes, the law has encouraged them and other LGBTQ students to become more involved in their communities and local politics.
“It's really hard sometimes, and I feel like there are a lot of people who really don't want you to exist, and in fact wish you weren't there,” Milo says. “The biggest middle finger you can give them is to just continue to be there and continue to exist.”