T

hink of every teacher 
you’ve ever had. Consider 
each of them, both your 
favorites and the ones you wish 
you could forget. Ponder all of 
the little moments that make up 
your childhood education, all 
the way up through high school, 
from the disappointed talks after 
the substitute teacher left a bad 
note to the oddly strict bathroom 
pass rules.
Now think of the first time you 
heard a teacher swear. The first 
time a teacher spoke to you like 
an adult. The times that you saw 
your teachers outside of school, 
maybe at the grocery store, and 
you were unsure of whether or 
not to say hello. Times when 
your teachers broke through the 
mold of “teacher” we’ve created 
in our minds. When that younger 
version of yourself was shocked 
into realizing that teachers are 
people — people with dreams, 
lives and limits, just like any 
other person. 
Teachers have a monumental 
responsibility: shaping America’s 
youth. At a minimum, they 
must be able to maintain a 
clean and orderly classroom; 
create 
comprehensive 
multimedia lesson plans; provide 
individualized 
interactive 
learning; assess student progress 
and 
regularly 
communicate 
that progress to students and 
parents; collaborate with school 
faculty and pay close attention to 
students’ behavior and emotional 
well-being. 
Expectations 
for 
teachers even go beyond the 
classroom — because education is 
viewed as a mechanism for social 
mobility, teachers are considered 
the 
vanguard 
for 
America’s 
struggle to reduce inequality.
That’s quite a comprehensive 
list. With such burdensome tasks, 
it would make sense for teachers 
to be treated with respect and 
given proper compensation and 
benefits, right? Apparently not!

During the 2015-2016 school 
year, about one-third of new 
teachers and 18% of regular, full-
time public school teachers had 
to work second jobs, just to make 
ends meet. One in five teachers 
in the United States have a 
second job, which magnifies 
the educator’s relative burden 
compared to other occupations.
The situation for teachers 
is only getting worse. Average 
teacher 
pay 
(when 
adjusted 
for 
inflation) 
has 
declined 
throughout 
the 
last 
decade. 
According 
to 
the 
National 
Education 
Association, 
the 
average 
(nominal) 
salary 
of 
American teachers in 2021-2022 
was about $66,000. In 2013 
dollars, however, that’s only 
$54,225 — about $2,000 less 
than the average salary in 2013. 
Compared to other professions 
with the same level of education, 
teachers’ wages were 23.5% less 
in 2021, a wage penalty that 
increased from 18.7% in 2017. 
Simply put, there are high 
expectations and low wages for 
teachers. Most people already 
know 
that. 
That’s 
because 
headlines 
in 
recent 
years 
showcase our teachers’ fight for 
fair benefits and wages. Last 
week in Los Angeles, employees 
from support staff to teachers 
of the second-largest school 
district in the country were on 
strike, demanding higher wages. 
Teachers in San Rafael, Calif., 
just authorized a strike after 
negotiating with the San Rafael 
City Schools since November. 
Earlier this month, teachers in 
Woodburn, Ore., threatened to 
strike, pointing out the many 
resignations in the district in the 
last few years.
Even 
those 
that 
are 
not 
formally considered educators 
have felt these burdens. Here 
at the University of Michigan, 
with the Graduate Employees’ 
Organization currently on strike 
for the second time in three years, 
we know about strikes impeding 
education all too well. They, too, 
are demanding higher wages. 

These instructors, 
at the University 
for 
their 
own 
education 
rather 
than 
teaching 
as 
a 
profession, 
face 
similar 
challenges of being 
undervalued 
for 
their labor.
Another 
consequence 
of 
the 
high-stress 
and 
low-paying 
conditions 
set 
for 
teachers 
is 
the 
profession’s 
worsening 
retention rate. The 
turnover rate for 
teachers reached a 
new high this year, 
which 
has 
been 
attributed 
mostly 
to the pandemic. 
According 
to 
a 
survey 
by 
the 
RAND 
Corporation, 
one 
in 
four 
teachers 
considered leaving 
their jobs during 
the 2020-21 school 
year, even if they 
didn’t actually go 
through with it. 
There is reportedly 
more 
job-related 
stress for school 
staff, 
specifically 
principals in this 
survey, who are people of Color, 
identify as female and are in 
high-poverty areas.
Obviously, this is bad for 
American 
education. 
How 
we 
treat 
our 
teachers 
has 
consequences: 
The 
U.S. 
education system lags behind 
other countries in terms of 
academic 
achievement. 
And 
when teachers are paid more, 
students do better. The work of 
teachers is crucial for society as a 
whole, but it is more so impactful 
at the individual level. The first 
part of this article asked you to 
think about your past teachers; 
whether good or bad, those 

memories are vivid, proving 
the importance of the role that 
teachers play in our lives.
However, their impact on the 
nation shouldn’t be the reason 
that teachers should get equitable 
pay and benefits. They should get 
those things simply because they 
are people. We shouldn’t need 
to argue for teachers’ jobs to 
have greater importance or need 
to point out how the declining 
retention rate and frequency 
of labor strikes further harm 
education. 
Instead 
of 
viewing 
the 
millions of teachers in the U.S. 
solely as their occupation, we 
should be seeing them first as 

people with human limits and 
rights to a safe, healthy working 
environment. 
With 
44% 
of 
schools 
reporting 
that 
they 
don’t have the capabilities to 
provide mental health services 
to students in need, teachers 
are forced to take on a larger 
role to compensate for that 
lack of care. These burdens 
are already taking their toll on 
teachers, with 79% of teachers 
reporting experiencing work-
related anxiousness and one in 
10 teachers being prescribed 
antidepressant 
medication 
to combat job pressures. The 
mental health of teachers is 
deteriorating, to the point that 

people are either leaving or 
never joining the profession at 
all.
Placing 
the 
burdensome 
weight 
of 
America’s 
entire 
education, social work and social 
justice system onto teachers and 
expecting them to do it with 
little support, and even less 
compensation, cannot continue. 
It has become quite obvious that 
teachers are willing to do what 
it takes to get the respect they 
deserve. Until there’s a change 
in the treatment of teachers, 
these strikes and bad retention 
rates are just going to continue. 
Then it’s the students paying the 
cost at the end of it all.

Opinion
Teachers are more than just their occupation

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

JAMIE MURRAY
Opinion Columnist

O

n March 23, the World 
Athletics 
Council, 
which runs the World 
Athletics 
Championships 
and 
other sporting events, decided to 
ban transgender women athletes 
from competing in any of their 
events if they have gone through 
any stages of male puberty. While 
this didn’t exactly come as a 
shock to anybody, given that the 
Council proposed this back in 
January, it was still an unpleasant 
reminder of just how transphobic 
the sports world can often be.
So, let’s talk about trans 
athletes — particularly trans 
women, as trans men were not 
included in the WAC’s ruling 
— because there are pervasive 
misconceptions that contribute 
to the mass hysteria over trans 
people playing sports.
First, some basic definitions. A 
trans person is anyone who does 
not identify with the sex they 
were assigned at birth. Trans is a 
broad category that encompasses 
trans men and women, as well 
as non-binary and gender non-
conforming people. A trans man 
is someone who was assigned 
female at birth and transitioned 
to a man. A trans woman is 
someone who was assigned male 
at birth and transitioned to a 
woman. I’m going to use trans 
people to refer to primarily trans 
men and women throughout the 
piece, but nonbinary and gender 
non-conforming people are very 
much a part of that community, 
and they are affected by this 
ruling as well.
Just to be very clear: Gender 
is not biological. Neither is 
sex. There are so many gene 
combinations that can cause 
someone to present as male or 
female that are not XX and XY. 
Genitals may not match up with 
someone’s external appearance, 
especially for intersex people. The 
World Athletics Council’s order 
hurts intersex individuals just 
as much as it hurts trans women 
because it prevents anyone who 
has gone through male puberty 
at all from participating — this 
applies to intersex people if their 
parents chose the male gender for 
them. 

The process of transitioning 
varies wildly by person. Not all 
trans people choose to medically 
transition, but many do. For 
these two genders, this involves 
hormone replacement therapy 
— trans men take testosterone 
and trans women take estrogen. 
Trans 
women 
may 
undergo 
breast 
augmentation 
while 
trans men may undergo double 
mastectomies 
(commonly 
called top surgery), and both 
may undergo bottom surgery 
to change their genitals. Any 
medical 
solution 
may 
also 
require 
extensive 
mental 
health analysis, referrals from 
doctors and certainly money. It 
is not something that someone 
undergoes just because they felt 
like trying out another gender for 
the day. 
So, trans women in sports: 
What’s the big deal? Short answer: 
There isn’t one. The only people 
making a big deal out of this are 
sore losers and transphobes.
The long answer is exactly 
the same: There isn’t a problem, 
except for the ones society 
creates. There is a belief, for 
example, that trans women are 
beginning to dominate women’s 
sports and win all of the awards. 
There is another, even dumber 
idea, that men would claim to be 
trans women and change in the 
girls’ locker rooms so they could 
see boobs. 
Absolutely zero trans people 
are transitioning so that they 
can win sports events. However, 
there are trans people who 
happen to play sports, and the 
best thing we can do is allow 
them to compete in the categories 
of their identity. Unfortunately, 
many organizations do not allow 
that because of rules about 
testosterone and assigned gender.
One 
of 
the 
most 
famous 
examples of a trans person in 
sports is Lia Thomas, a swimmer 
at the University of Pennsylvania. 
She gained media attention in 2021 
when she became one of the most 
successful transfeminine athletes 
in college sports, dominating 
her competitions and becoming 
the first trans woman to win an 
NCAA Division I championship. 
She came out during her junior 
year and began HRT for her 
gender dysphoria. NCAA rules at 
the time stated that trans female 

athletes “may not compete on a 
women’s team until completing 
one calendar year of testosterone 
suppression treatment.” Those 
rules have since been updated to 
be more inclusive. 
After Thomas had completed 
that requirement and deferred 
her eligibility a year due to 
COVID-19, she began to swim 
on the women’s team in 2021, 
dominating 
competitions 
and 
drawing 
massive 
amounts 
of 
hatred 
from 
right-wing 
news sources and many of her 
teammates 
and 
opponents. 
Many opponents cited that her 
‘biology,’ such as her height and 
bone density, gave her unfair 
advantages, and backed this up 
with some scientific studies that 
supposedly show that advantage. 
However, Dr. Joshua D. Safer, 
co-author 
of 
the 
Endocrine 
Society’s guidelines for treating 
trans people, stated, “A person’s 
genetic make-up and internal and 
external reproductive anatomy 
are not useful indicators of 
athletic performance,” and most 
medical experts agree.
Sometimes, 
when 
looking 
at how dominant Thomas was 
throughout her final season, it 
might be easy to believe that the 
transphobes are correct and that 
Thomas is simply too dominant to 
be allowed to swim with women. 
But, she was previously one of 
the best swimmers on the Penn 
men’s team, and she was not even 
ranked No. 1 in the country in 
collegiate women’s swimming 
during her final season. If she was 
so good on the men’s team, what 
advantage would she have gained 
by transitioning? Maybe she’s just 
a good swimmer. 
But transphobes don’t want to 
hear that. One of the girls that 
Thomas beat is still on Fox News 
whining about her loss nearly 
a year after the race. She and 
those who agree with her simply 
cannot accept that someone who 
is trans might be good at sports. 
And, while they are comfortable 
speaking their hatred, they are 
often empowered by the shield 
of anonymity, as is evident in 
this quote from a teammate of 
Thomas’ who didn’t want her to 
swim on the team: “I’m not about 
to be labeled as transphobic.”

Trans people in sports: A non-issue

MADISON AUCHINCLOSS
Opinion Contributor 

Design by Kim Ly

Let’s take care
of each other.

The well-being
of our community
means everything.

Do you or someone you know — faculty, staff or student 
— need extra support? Connect with tools and 
resources at U-M that can help you thrive — 
from wellness classes and apps to useful information 
and counseling options.

Helping Leaders Feel Their Best:
wellbeing.umich.edu

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