President Donald Trump's billionaire Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, was greeted with peaceful protest while visiting Grand Rapids Public Museum School in Michigan earlier this week.
14-year old genderqueer student Torin Hodgman, who uses gender neutral pronouns, escorted DeVos as she toured the public school's facilities.
DeVos has been tasked with overseeing the Trump administration's roll-back of Obama's protections for transgender children.
Speaking to local media following the meeting, the student stressed the need to support and protect trans young people.
They continued, pointing out that transgender young people "have a higher rate of suicide and deaths than anybody else".
President and CEO of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis, has previously called DeVos out forher unclear position on LGBTIQ+ rights.
"Her record of walking-back LGBTQ protections and actively refusing to aid transgender students facing discrimination speaks for itself," she said.
“It is long past time for Secretary DeVos to reverse course and clearly denounce policies that target LGBTQ students. Our Secretary of Education should be fighting for all students, not actively making life more difficult for transgender students.”
When the Human Rights Campaign projected messages onto the U.S. Department of Education headquarters last week, DeVos and her policies were one of the main points of focus.
“Betsy DeVos, how do you sleep at night when only 26 percent of LGBTQ youth always feel safe in class?” one of the messages read.
There are an estimated 150,000 transgender young people between the ages of 13 and 17 in the United States.
