The lace fan was his partner's, he said, though it has become a regular traveling aid when he visits somewhere warm - as Washington was in April. "What it represents to be an openly gay person and a queer LGBT person in the White House."
"The entire day I was thinking about what it means to be in the White House and in the Oval Office," he said. When he interviewed with state officials about it, he said, he made sure to dress no differently than he did with his students - "with a bit of flair."Īnd so by extension, Giannopoulos felt, he had to dress the same way in Washington. The 29-year-old teacher's work with the school's gay-straight alliance helped win him the award. He said he's been working with them to write the school's bathroom policies, after the Trump administration revoked federal guarantees that they could use the ones matching their gender identity. They're not feeling they're going to be supported." "They never stop to think: Oh, maybe that's just who I am."Īnd yet, the teacher acknowledged, there was a certain social significance in his decision to dress as himself to a White House that has revoked federal protections for transgender students, erased an LGBT rights page from its website and hired at least one adviser who appears to believe in gay conversion.īeacon - a small school in Woonsocket - has nearly a dozen transgender students, Giannopoulos said. "The issue with being openly queer is our existence is constantly politicized," he said. His attire in the Oval Office, he explained, was more or less the same style he wore in the classroom at Beacon Charter High School for the Arts, where his work as a special-education teacher won him Rhode Island's teacher of the year award and a trip to the White House in April. Giannopoulos, who only received the photo recently, did not sound fierce on the phone with The Washington Post. "Bold, Gay Teacher Of The Year Photo Bombs Donald Trump With Fan," was HuffPost's first headline (later toned down) after Giannopoulos posted the photo on Facebook on Thursday and quickly amassed thousands of shares. He wore a rainbow pin on his lapel, a ring through his nose and a gold anchor around his neck. Nikos Giannopoulos cocked his head ever so slightly away from the president, toward a black lace fan he'd brought with him. When Rhode Island's teacher of the year took his turn in front of the camera with President Donald Trump in April, he struck a pose some took as an act of defiance: He visited White House as Rhode Island's teacher of the year awardee.It was the same style he wore in his classroom, he said.Nikos Giannopoulos cocked his head toward a lace fan he'd brought along.When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering. Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).