A politically engaged 10-year-old Northeast Ohio girl wrote a letter to the editor recently, expressing firmly held views about a LGBTQ+ issues, and we were happy to publish it. A few days later, an anonymous letter arrived at her Northeast Ohio home expressing an opposing viewpoint. That means someone used the girl’s last name and hometown – listed with her letter – to track down her home address. That’s creepy. We’re talking about a child here. The child’s mom wrote me to suggest we consider changing our policy to protect future juvenile letter writers from this kind of thing. “We warned her that people would likely disagree with her letter if it was published, and to expect some debate,” the mom wrote. “But normal debate does not include anonymous letters to children’s homes. Fortunately, the letter was not threatening and was actually just a polite disagreement – but the letter’s contents do not negate the fact that an adult sought out our daughter’s address and sent her personal, anonymous mail.” We’ve had a few examples over time of people tracking down the home addresses of letter writers to send comments, which feels invasive, but this is the first experience we know of with a child. The girl’s mom suggested we either use the first initial of a child’s last name, instead of the name, or not list the town where the child lives. My feeling is that if a child writes a letter to the editor, part of the thrill of having it published is seeing their name, so from now own, we likely will not publish the towns where child letter writers live. In this case, we have removed both the girl’s last name and her hometown from the letter, at the request of her mom. “I believe it is important that the media continue to provide all citizens, including minors, the opportunity to voice their opinion. While we understood our daughter's name would be published, we failed to appreciate the lengths to which an unstable person would go to reach out to her. In this political environment, I believe more care could be taken in the personal information published with a minor’s political letter to the editor,” the mom wrote. If your child wants to write a letter to the editor, we welcome it. We generally include a note about the age of the child or what grade they are in along with a reference to a parent signing off on our using it. From now on, though, we will take steps to protect the children from harassment. And, hey -- please don’t harass our letter writers. America is the land of free speech, and we are proud to provide a widely available forum for people to express views through letters to the editor. If you disagree, please write an opposing view as a letter to the editor. But please don’t track down the home addresses of letter writers and send them anonymous notes. It’s creepy. Please don’t be a creep. In case you missed it, this is what the girl said in her letter to the editor: LGBTQIA+ students have rights, including the right to privacy. That is why I was outraged when I read about House Bill 8. Although this “Parents’ Bill of Rights” doesn’t specifically target LGBTQIA+ youth, its requirement that schools tell parents about any change in “monitoring related to a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being” imply it. This bill has numerous problems. First, it could put some LGBTQIA+ youth at risk. Some parents, unfortunately, would abuse or neglect their children if they found out that they were LGBTQIA+. Although the bill claims to make exceptions for students at risk of abuse if the information is disclosed, teachers and other staff don’t always know if telling parents could put them in that position. Second, students should decide if and/or when they want to come out to their parents. It is a violation of student privacy to deprive them of that decision. And the bill doesn’t just affect students. It’s also a burden for staff, who could lose their students’ trust if they disclose information regarding their sexuality. States shouldn’t get to control how teachers react. Students should get to come out on their own time. HB 8 threatens that. On another note, The Terry Pluto newsletter is official. I wrote about it a few weeks ago and heard from plenty of people who want it. (For those who worried we were over-working Terry, rest easy. Terry does not have any new tasks associated with the newsletter.) This is a newsletter for people who want to be sure they don’t miss content by Terry. It compiles his work into a weekly newsletter with links to the website. Some of that content is for paying subscribers only. The newsletter will arrive in your email every Monday morning. Sign up for free at cleveland.com/newsletters. I’m at [email protected]. Thanks for reading. | 