My Mom and I agree that no matter how old you are, the week of Labor Day always feels like a new year. That’s because for Canadians and many Americans, it marks the beginning of the new school year. It’s a time of change and disruption that brings with it both a melancholy about the end of summer and the days getting shorter as well as an excitement about seeing all the friends you missed over the last two months.

But for many kids, September comes with fear. You’re no longer safe from the classrooms and hallways that can be full of bullies or from the intense pressure to perform academically and socially.

For me, being closeted for most of K-12 came with intense stress and anxiety. I knew about the societal stigma associated with being gay. I wasn’t sure if my guy friends, many of whom used anti-gay slurs, would accept me. And back then, I had no signals from any teachers that being gay was okay. It just wasn’t discussed.

While closeted through high school, I’d binge drink intensely, including one instance at 14 years old that landed me in the hospital. While some of this was innocent fun, a lot more of it was to fit in and to give me drunk goggles that’d enable me to push through hookups with girls that I had no interest in. If you’re straight, imagine what it would be like to feel forced, because of societal pressure, to hook up with people of the same gender even though you are completely unattracted to them.

I’d think of anything to perform sexually. Most of the time it worked. And during the few times it didn’t, I blamed whisky dick (alcohol offers a get out of jail free card for so many things!)

It wasn’t fun. But it was all in the name of having enough hookups to cover any of my feminine behavior that might out me.

Outside of this, I was lucky to have accepting friends, and overall I had a great high school experience. But for LGBTQ kids in 2026 in many parts of the U.S., the pressure to conform is unbearable. For those who are closeted and haven’t yet mustered up the courage to come out, it’s probably worse.

That’s because, as queer kids enter many schools in the U.S. this week, anti-LGBTQ lawmakers are forcing their ideology into classrooms to create a fictitious reality that LGBTQ youth don’t exist.

For example, 14 states have some form of so-called “Don’t Say Gay” laws on the books. In some cases, this means teachers are banned from teaching anything related to gay people. No books that feature two dads, no stories that talk about the perils of coming out and no media that depicts gay relationships. These laws invisibilize anything outside of heterosexuality.

For trans and gender nonconforming kids, the situation is even worse. In 21 states and Puerto Rico, there are bathroom bans in K-12 schools that disallow trans kids from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. In addition, 27 states have trans sports bans written into law and 15 states requiresome form of forced outing to parents of trans youth in schools.

All of this fueling a mental health crisis among LGBTQ youth, where anxiety, depression and suicide rates are through the roof. Drawing from my own experience trying to hide my gay identity in school, I believe that these laws are forcing kids to remain closeted and in turn destroying their mental health.

I know many of the politicians pushing these laws are so wrapped up in their far-right beliefs that they will be unreachable.

So my ask is to the people in that movable middle, who may be swayed to either side of the arguments surrounding these laws. Please, please look at the mental health stats (linked above!) and try to put yourself in the shoes of the kids who are feeling forced into a performance that often pushes them into risky behavior like unwanted sex or substance abuse.

There are millions of closeted kids right now who are keeping a secret. They feel immense pressure to perform a gender or sexual orientation because of rules that they or their teachers have been legally bound to follow.

America is supposed to be free. Kids are supposed to be given time to figure out who they are. By binding kids to a straightjacket of heteronormativity, you aren’t creating fewer queer people. You are exacerbating a mental health crisis.