Ellie Roscher

These are the women who raised me.

OK, we can kind of put Catholicism in a little box, which it often deserves to be.

But I was raised by feminist nuns to be a feminist.

Right.

OK, so one of the things that they taught me is that when a policy comes down, when people are talking about a policy, you have to look to who the most vulnerable folks in your community are.

are they would kind of draw a radius around where they were located and say we're going to make sure everyone in this geographical circle is okay and how are the most vulnerable people in that circle going to be affected by this policy in what context were they talking about yeah so for example one of the social tenants is preferential option for the poor okay so you have to as a policy comes through you always have to ask how is this going to affect the people who are struggling the most with money

with stability, right?

That is a seed that I just want to plant before I circle back to be teaching at a Catholic school.

My first hour class in the fall one year, I meet a boy named Mark.

He introduces himself to me.

He's six feet tall.

He's wearing a JROTC, like a military uniform because we had junior military there.

And he's totally delightful.

And then I go to take attendance and his name in the attendance sheet was Catherine.

And so I had this really interesting experience.

He was my first trans student.

At that moment, his parents weren't fully supportive of his journey.

And so he still kind of in all the official documents had his birth name in the attendance sheet.

And it became clear to me, you know, I met Mark.

I didn't meet a trans boy first, right?