Seattle high school claims that 80 percent of its students identify as LGBTQ+, non-binary, or transgender

Way back in the early ’90s when this editor was in grad school, there were posters all over the walls claiming that one in every ten people is homosexual. That number always seemed high, and it turns out the 10 percent number came from a study all the way back in the 1940s by Alfred Kinsey which used some rather unconventional methods (such as surveying prison populations). So what’s the real number? Well, one high school in Seattle claims that 80 percent of its students identify as LGBTQ+, non-binary, or transgender. (We suspect the “Q,” for questioning, is doing a lot of heavy lifting.) Abigal Shrier’s book title suggested there was a “craze” among teen girls to be transgender, which got her book pulled from Target for a bit.

Here’s Nova High School:

Nova High School in Seattle describes its pedagogical approach as "decentering whiteness, patriarchy, [and] hetero- and cis-normativity." 80 percent of its students identify as "LGBTQ+, non-binary, and transgender." The school does not issue grades. pic.twitter.com/CTgTd32bYT

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 16, 2022

“Through these cycles, we deconstruct systems of power and privilege and rebuild ourselves, our school, and our communities with different ways of being. By decentering whiteness, patriarchy, hetero- and cis-normativity, and able bodies, and by embracing neurodiversity, we are revisioning education communities as spaces where students’ needs are met, growth is the metric that matters, and behavior is understood as a form of communication.”

It's an interesting convergence of a few trends: it's an alternative high school that's had the hippie "self-governing" ethos since 1970; it's all-in on social justice ideology as its moral and pedagogical system; and it's a predominantly white LGBTQ/trans/nonbinary population.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 16, 2022

I'm curious as to whether there's another high school in the US with a higher rate of LGBTQ-identifying students. It's at 80 percent, according to the district. Although, given the curriculum and pedagogy, it could be more of a political identifier than a sexual identifier.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 16, 2022