Missouri school board member resigns and plans to move over anti-LGBTQ bills

A school board member in central Missouri resigned Tuesday, blaming a slate of bills introduced by state lawmakers that would negatively affect her transgender daughter.

Katherine Sasser, who served for two years on the Columbia School Board, said at a school board meeting Monday that her family will also move before the start of the next school year because the state “is no longer a safe place” for them, according to KOMU-TV, a local NBC affiliate.

“I came to Columbia, Missouri as a wide-eyed college freshman at the University of Missouri in 2003 and I have spent the last 20 years building my life here,” she said in a statement shared on social media following the board meeting. “This district raised me professionally.”

At 22 years old, she wrote in her post, she cried her way through her first year teaching eighth grade U.S. history at West Junior High, and went on to raise her three children in the district.

“Who I am as an educator and human are all inextricably tied to this place and to each of you,” wrote Sasser, who was elected to the school board in April 2021 after teaching for nine years in the district’s schools. “While this transition pains me, I am further saddened by the possibility of a future Missouri where a generation of young people are not given the opportunity to get to know and love their diverse neighbors.”

She added, “I’m afraid of classrooms whose bookshelves only represent one point of view, students who aren’t free to show up as their full selves, and educators not being trusted to make the decisions they need to in order to serve each and every student under their care.”

While holding back tears at the board meeting, Sasser called on other school board members to “use our agency and privilege, wherever we find it, to stand in on behalf of those who continue to be attacked and minoritized,” KOMU-TV reported.

“Especially in these challenging times, believe people when they say who they are and what they need,” she said. “Lean in to community and care with one another. Choose compassionate action. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.”

Sasser received a standing ovation following her announcement during the meeting and was tearfully thanked for her remarks and her service by Board President Suzette Waters, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported.

“It has been a real joy to get to know you,” Waters said.

In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Waters said Sasser's absence will not go unnoticed.

"It's sad that she has to leave the place that she wants to be, that she's having to uproot her family and make arrangements to leave," Waters told NBC News. "And it's sad for us as a board, because we don't get to serve with her anymore."

Waters noted that Sasser was the only board member who was a classroom teacher in Columbia Public Schools and said she brought valuable insight to the board as a result.

So far this year, Missouri lawmakers have introduced 48 bills targeting LGBTQ rights, the highest number in the nation behind Texas, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which found that almost half of those bills would restrict trans rights, specifically.

Last month, the state’s Republican-led House passed a bill that would ban gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors. On the same day, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who has been investigating an adolescent gender clinic at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, also announced an emergency rule that would restrict access to transition-related care for all trans people in the state. A judge blocked the rule hours before it was slated to take effect April 27 and then extended her order until a hearing July 20.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com