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August 14, 2026
Trans and queer rights are labor rights. Drawing on his experiences as a gay educator and union leader, Jeff Freitas explains why protecting LGBTQIA+ workers is inseparable from defending the entire labor movement. Read his powerful call for solidarity—and learn why an attack on one group of workers is an attack on us all.
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By Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers.
When I started teaching in September 1994, I had just finished my credential program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This was 16 years after the Briggs Initiative — a ballot measure that would’ve prohibited gay men like me from teaching in California — was defeated thanks to the help of Harvey Milk. Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in the state. It was his advocacy that made him famous — not his death. If the ballot measure had passed, a teacher could have been fired for simply being gay. No due process, no job protection, just fired. Would it have been held in court? I don’t know, but luckily it was defeated at the ballot box.
While I did have a partner at the time, I did not come out to everyone. Gay marriage wasn’t legal anywhere, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — the military policy that prohibited openly gay, lesbian and bisexual people from serving in the military — was just enacted that year. Before UC Santa Barbara, I went to West Point, but left because I realized I was gay. So I couldn’t serve my country, I couldn’t marry the man I loved, and I was questioned for being a teacher, not to mention a basketball coach.
But I became a teacher because I wanted to help kids. I wanted to provide them with opportunities to succeed. I wanted to make a difference in their lives. I wasn’t what you would call closeted, but I also didn’t go up to people and say, “Hi, my name is Jeff, and I’m gay.”
At the end of my second year as a teacher — the end of California’s probationary period when teachers don’t have due process rights — there was another teacher who used a gay slur to describe me in front of a group of students. The students were shocked, as was I when I discovered what he said. I felt vulnerable, not because the students or the teachers thought I was gay, but because I didn’t know to whom I could turn. That teacher was my site representative.
I felt vulnerable, not because the students or the teachers thought I was gay, but because I didn’t know to whom I could turn. That teacher was my site representative.
I brought it to the school principal’s attention. He apologized. I moved on. But I did want to replace my site rep because someone representing members shouldn’t be discriminating against anyone. So, I began my involvement by joining the bargaining team of my union, the Carpinteria Association of Federated Teachers (which is now the Carpinteria Association of United School Employees). It wasn’t enough for me to protect the students; I wanted to protect the other teachers, too. Within two years, I was asked to be president of the local. It was a small local with 150 teachers in a K-12 district. Then, I went on to organize the classified PSRP unit so that we would have more power and be wall-to-wall.
But when I began my journey with the union work, I knew nothing about unions. After I became the local president, I threw myself into the affiliate unions, the California Federation of Teachers and the AFT. I attended union training sessions, meetings, conferences and conventions. I slowly told people at my school that I was gay. And within the union, I let them know right away. Thankfully, within the union-verse, with very few exceptions, I was completely accepted. I knew that the fight for workers’ rights, salaries, healthcare and all the issues people call “bread and butter” also included the right for me to be me at work and at home.
I knew that the fight for workers’ rights, salaries, healthcare and all the issues people call “bread and butter” also included the right for me to be me at work and at home.
Between that time and now, many things have changed both through the courts and through legislation. Sodomy laws were struck down in Lawrence v. Texas. Marriage equality is now the law. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, and now gay people can serve openly.
But rights that have been won have also been taken away: Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s right to an abortion, was overturned, and the Janus decision took away public unions’ right to charge non-members agency fees.
We are also seeing attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly on trans and non-binary workers. These attacks are coming from the same place: The same corporate dark-money forces, like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, that fund anti-trans legislation also attack unions, undermine the National Labor Relations Act and fight minimum wage increases. Their goal is to divide workers, to get us focused on who is using which bathroom instead of who is stealing our pensions. The same media outlets — Fox News, Newsmax, Murdoch media — that tell you trans people are a threat are the same ones that blame unions when the economy goes south and push to replace workers with promises of “innovation.” If they lie to you about us, they are lying to you about trans people too.
If they lie to you about us, they are lying to you about trans people too.
This is not a coincidence. It’s a strategy.
Some of what I have written here was a part of my speech at the AFL-CIO convention in Minneapolis this past June during a debate on a resolution. The resolution I had co-authored, Trans and Queer Rights are Labor Rights, had been merged into a broader resolution on standing with immigrants, communities of color, indigenous communities and women facing attacks on reproductive rights. I supported that resolution fully. Solidarity means standing together, and the intersectionality of that resolution made exactly the right case. But I also needed those words — trans and queer rights are labor rights — not to be lost in the room.
Just as the defeat of the Briggs Initiative in 1978 was both a civil rights and a labor victory, the fight for trans and non-binary rights today is inseparable from the fight for worker rights. More than 600 anti-trans bills were introduced at the state level in 2025 alone. The Trump administration is stripping gender-affirming healthcare, reinstating the ban on transgender military service and directing the EEOC to stop enforcing workplace protections for transgender workers. These are all attacks on workers.
What does the dollar or healthcare benefit we earn at work mean if we can’t spend or use it where and how we want because of who we are?
What does the dollar or healthcare benefit we earn at work mean if we can’t spend or use it where and how we want because of who we are?
I gave my speech at that convention not just for myself, but also for the 1994 version of me who was teaching without job protection and loving without recognition. I gave it for every LGBTQIA+ worker out there. To remind everyone in that room — and everyone reading this now — that our rights are worker rights. An attack on LGBTQIA+ workers is an attack on the entire labor movement.
Our movement has always been strongest when we stand with everyone — immigrants, communities of color, women and LGBTQIA+ workers. That’s not someone else’s fight. That’s our fight. I will leave you with this, an idea that a friend shared with me recently: Together, we have many dreams but one fight.
Do your students know about the history of the labor movement? Help students learn about impact labor activists have had on the course of history, the importance of workers' rights and worker safety.
