March 19, 2025 | Kaleia Lawrence

Rae Thompson: burning bright and being seen

As a third-generation Wisconsin educator, Rae is overcoming hate, exclusion and erasure with an unstoppable spirit.

Rae Thompson

"We have always been there. You just chose not to write about us.”

When Rae Tompson was getting ready to start their new job as a high school counselor in a small Wisconsin school district, they were ready for some backlash about being non-binary.

What they weren’t expecting was a spew of hate coming from across continents.

Now with two years under their belt, Rae says they are thankful for the doors that have opened since then.

Midwest white girl fantasy

Rae grew up in Manitowoc, where the population is 34,568 people as of 2023. They say the city maintains a small town, rural Wisconsin feel because of where it’s located.

“I wore makeup everyday in high school. I had the boyfriend, wore the prom dress, I wore the short shorts and, you know, I very much lived the Midwestern white girl fantasy,” said Rae.

Despite the daily makeup, Rae felt most comfortable wearing outfits like sweatshirts and jeans. It was often what they saw their mom wearing growing up, and when Rae trended towards a similar fashion sense, their parents didn’t bat an eye.

“My parents were very much like, ‘Yeah, you be you man.’ I got very lucky with being able to have parents that guided me with what I needed and were very supportive when I needed it, but also were very like, ‘Go figure it out. Like that's cool, as long as you're not harming another human being or harming yourself, it's fine’,” said Rae.

One of Rae’s favorite and recurring Halloween costumes was Dracula, an outfit they look back on fondly.

“This is one of the ones that always makes me, like, how did we not know? Because for so many years, I wanted to be Dracula and my mom said, ‘You don't want to be a vampire princess?’ No, I want to be Dracula. And like that,” Rae said, pointing at the picture, “looks like a little boy.”

One of the only LGBTQ adults Rae saw growing up was a teacher who was often made fun of.

“It was like people that were part of that community kind of got picked on a little bit, not like aggressively that I ever saw. It was something that was just kind of like hush-hush like that, Midwestern, like we're not going to talk about it,” said Rae. “Gay marriage had just been legalized, and so it was just not a time where I think my town was ready for a lot of LGBTQ people.”

Rae’s first experience coming out of the closet came in middle school, when they came out as bisexual.

“I immediately went back in the closet because I was like, oh, I don't know if this is safe right now to be me. OK, I’m just going to go back in the closet and then it was like something that I didn't really talk about until I was in college,” said Rae.

Getting a degree and gender identity

While coming out of the closet didn’t happen again until college, there were still times Rae looks back on and sees as formative moments. While in jeans and a sweatshirt once, a boy tried to insult them by saying “at least I dress my gender.”

“I think that's the first time I ever had any sort of experience with gender, but never thought about it until I was an adult and then thought about it again and was like, maybe I was trying to like find my gender then and just didn't have the vocabulary because I grew up in the small town,” said Rae.

While going to high school, Rae says the Gay Straight Alliance club was very small. They’ve heard that recently the GSA has majorly jumped in participants.

“To know that there are kids in my hometown that are able to be authentically queer is amazing because I didn't get that growing up,” said Rae.

When it came time for college, Rae decided to stay in state, attending UW - Eau Claire to earn their bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in family studies. Rae always knew they wanted to help youth, which meant starting on a social work track.

“And then I ended up in education. I was like, my heart's too big, gonna hurt too much. So then I shifted over to school counseling and I really liked it,” said Rae.

That switch to education put Rae in line with much of their family. They are a third-generation educator. Their mom was an elementary school teacher in New Holstein, their grandpa was a science professor in Eagle River, their grandmother was a beauty school manager and one of their uncles was a professor at UW Eau Claire.

It was towards their end of time as an undergraduate student that Rae started to learn more about themselves and what different gender identities look like during a Sociology of Women class.

“That's where I really learned about gender being a spectrum. I knew about trans people, but I had never heard about nonbinary individuals,” said Rae.

Shortly after, a sibling of a friend in Manitowoc came out to Rae.

“I had, like, been questioning my gender at that point. Like if this 16-year-old can do it in my hometown, I can do it like this.”

After graduating early, Rae went to UW-Stout for their master’s degree in school counseling, a requirement to become a counselor in Wisconsin and across much of the United States.

In 2021, during their first year as a Blue Devil, Rae came out of the closet again as bisexual.

“When I came out as an adult, my dad was like, ‘Are you trying to tell me you have a girlfriend?’ I'm like, ‘No, Dad. That's not what I'm saying, but there's a high chance I will’,” said Rae.

Then they started exploring their gender. Rae was going through some difficult circumstances in their personal life and something had to give.

“I was like, there's nowhere to go but up. And at this point, I got to figure out what's going to make me happy."

"And part of that was figuring out that I got to start living my life authentically. And finding my gender is probably the best thing that happened to me. Despite all the crap that happened during that year, it forced me to find my gender and I’ve been living authentically ever since,” said Rae.Rae says neither of their announcements came as a surprise for their sister.

“When I came out as non-binary, she goes, ‘Yeah, you always look awkward and dressed like you never looked comfortable in anything super feminine.’ I was like cool. Thanks. Cool,” laughed Rae.

Rae said coming out allowed them to be more genuinely happy.

“It finally felt like a weight was off my chest because I think for so long, I was trying to fit into that box of what a woman was supposed to be. And finally, when I was just like, you know, like, this doesn't feel right and realizing that’s what I always felt,” said Rae.

Becoming the target of worldwide hate

Rae’s first job post-college brought them to Brodhead, a city with a population of 3,212 people as of 2023. That’s more than ten times smaller than their hometown.

In August of that year, a post on the Brodhead School District Facebook page introduced Rae as a new staff member.

Rae Thompson

That post read in part, “Hi there! My name is Rae Tompson (they/them) and I am excited to introduce myself as the new School Counselor…I cannot wait to see all the amazing things Brodhead has in store! I look forward to meeting and working with the staff and students, as well as the community this coming school year. Thank you for putting your trust in me! - Mx. Tompson”

This quickly garnered nearly 10,000 reactions, more than triple the population of Brodhead.

“I was definitely anticipating some, a little bit, of backlash and definitely some pushback. Like it's unfortunately a smaller community in Wisconsin. Like I kind of knew what I was getting into. Definitely was not expecting to reach that many people and have like that big of hate come in,” said Rae.

There were messages from not only across the United States but from around the world. Rae says the majority of the hate was from outside of Brodhead. During the fallout, Rae quickly learned how to lock down their social media accounts to prevent some of the hate.

“People were, like, screenshotting my profile pictures and making memes. So I had people screenshotting one of my graduation photos because my graduation cap for my master’s program says, ‘Visible for those who can't be’ and it's the nonbinary pride flag. I was holding my fist up and somebody was like, ‘Gee, this person's super radical, like, they shouldn't be in the school’,” said Rae. “I had to take any sort of fundraiser posts down because people were creating fake accounts, laughing, reacting at those and then deleting the accounts. So I would still get the notification, but I couldn't do anything about it.”

Rae says they’re thankful they weren’t doxxed while this all unfolded. They credit a strong support system in making it all bearable.

“The fact that my close family has been so supportive of my gender journey and me being who I am and just loving me for who I am, that helped a lot. 'Cause I don't think I would have navigated that as successfully if I didn't have my friends and my family,” said Rae.

Extra support also came from outside of Rae’s personal life.

“Some of the surrounding school districts even reached out, like, ‘Hey, like we support and we're really sorry you're going through this, know that you have my support’,” said Rae.

The support manifested itself in different ways. A Fortune 500 company invited Rae to speak about the intersection of mental health and LGBTQ students. Rae also received donations, which they then gave the money back to the school and used some of it to provide some students an opportunity to see the play “Romeo and Juliet” in Spring Green.

“Despite all of the negative that happened in that, you know, few weeks or whatever, I think the positive has outpaced that,” said Rae.

This situation also opened Rae’s door up to connecting with LGBTQ students in different ways.

“One of the seniors who was a trans student came into my office with their parents and gave me this cup of candy and was like, ‘I just want you to know, like, we see you and we appreciate that you're here’.”

Multiple reports point to LGBTQ children often experiencing disproportionate rates of mental health struggles in comparison to their straight and cisgender counterparts due to their stigmatization in society. The disparities worsen when comparing white students with Black students and students of color.

A 2024 report from the Trevor Project shares when young LGBTQ students have access to affirming spaces, those students are less likely to consider suicide. About 35% of LGBTQ students in Wisconsin consider school one of those spaces.

Rae Thompson

Other staff have noticed how LGBTQ students are comfortable around Rae.

“It’s not like they hang out in my office or anything like that. But, you know, they say hi all the time,” said Rae.

“So that's really cool to know that just my presence of being there has been awesome. And I know that there are staff members in the building that have learned from me and have become a little bit softer to our LGBTQ kids because they've learned that like, hey, we're just people.”

While there were many positives that came out of the hate, there were still some issues once the school year started. Someone once accused Rae of pushing an agenda. When they created a free mental health initiative that included various resources and information, about 40 students were pulled from being involved because Rae was the one leading it.

“I had caught somebody who was a coach within the building putting ‘there's only two genders’ up onto a sticky note. So I have had to unfortunately deal with that. I've had parents tell me that I'm part of the mentally ill community,” said Rae.

Even when situations like this arise, Rae knows there is a community within the district that has their back.

“I think some of the staff tend to stick up for me out in the public a little bit more. I know there's some parents that have really gotten to know me that are like, ‘Yeah, these people are trying to like, say something, and I shut it right down.’ I was like, ‘Thank you, appreciate that’,” said Rae.

“I have managed to streamline a bunch of stuff at the school, update things that were very outdated or really hard to follow and just kind of setting up some really good systems to be successful in the future. And I think people realize that and they're like, ‘oh, this person is literally just trying to do their job’.”

What Rae does on a day-to-day basis changes. Some frequent tasks include scheduling, answering emails, going over transcripts to make sure students are on track to graduate, pushing out lesson plans to teachers about career development and much, much more. One constant is checking in with students.

“Most of the time, I'm talking to kids about their relationships, if there's drama going on, like, I'm talking to them about school and being stressed at home. If they're worried about college and if they need to be doing x, y and z classes, like kids have enough to worry about right now, and I've got enough work too.”

Education in the era of Trump

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Rae says they saw many MAGA shirts, hats and huge signs.

“I think the hardest one for me personally is seeing a kid walk around with a sweatshirt that says ‘there's only two genders’ on it,” said Rae. “The staff within my building and finding my people within that community that have my back was really helpful in having to talk about that and through the election.”

While Brodhead trends Republican, Rae says there was a negative energy in the school the day after the presidential election.

“It was sad, like, you could just tell it was eerily quiet…This very somber feeling throughout the building was weird,” said Rae. “I tried to mitigate that by creating a little positivity cards and I pasted them outside my office and said, ‘Oh, it's the cold weather. If you need some, you know if you're feeling gloomy, get a positive card.’ But no, I just could tell that there was a definite vibe in the building that was not positive.”

Since President Donald Trump’s re-election, Rae has been forced to take extra measures both for themselves and for their students. They have been working on putting things in place so that if they have to leave at a drop of a hat, a different employee can step right in.

“My partner and I have had those conversations about like, hey, if this does go south, like, where are we going? And I definitely didn't think I'd be sitting in 2025 thinking about the fact that I might have to flee for my safety,” said Rae.

Attacks on education and LGBTQ students are being made on the federal and state level. Wisconsin Republicans are fighting to ban transgender girls from playing on girl’s sports teams. Another measure would require schools to use pronouns that align with the sex a child is assigned at birth. While both bills are expected to fail if they make it to Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ desk, the introduction of them is cause for concern.

The Trump administration is attempting to gut the Department of Education, though Wisconsin is joining a coalition of states to challenge some of the orders made.

This exact move is one Rae has been worried about.

“There's a reason that we have education regulations. Like there needs to be people who are trained to be teaching the kids. Like there's educational theory for a reason,” said Rae. “I wouldn't go into a doctor's office and start telling them what they should be prescribing to patients, just like, you know, doctors and other people shouldn't be coming into the school.”

At the rate changes are made, Rae says anything could happen.

“It's unfortunately a very real possibility that he could throw one out there that says, ‘Hey, if you're trans, or you think you're trans and in education, you're not allowed to be there anymore’.”

Rae says many of the Trump administration’s moves have been challenging to navigate as an adult, and they worry how children will handle them. A survey from the Trevor Project found nearly 90% of LGBTQ students say recent politics have negatively impacted their mental health, with more than half of them saying it negatively impacts them a lot.

“Right now their rights are literally being stripped away. As an adult, like some of mine have been stripped already. But I still have access to healthcare. And I still have access to my gender-affirming care that I'm dealing with and these kids are about to be completely stripped of that,” said Rae.

Rae says a quote from a character in the cult classic video game Fallout franchise has provided them with inspiration. In that game, Joshua Graham says in part, “I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.”

“I feel like that's so true right now, more than ever. Like, the world's in chaos. The flames are going on. It's like that meme or whatever, where it's like ‘It's fine. This is fine.’ with the little dog and the flaming, burning house’. That's kind of what I picture it as."

"I can either be consumed by this fire, or I can start burning even brighter -- and saying you're not going to snuff out my light.”

Rae says even when times are tough, it’s important to know that people can change their minds amidst the hate.

“My dad is going to be 66 here in a couple weeks. He grew up in a time that didn't really necessarily understand it, and he grew up in the same town I did, and it was even smaller and probably not as friendly back when he was growing up. But to see him take the steps to learn about me, understand me and listen to me, like, that keeps my fire burning because I'm like, if my dad can learn it and if my 75-year-old aunt can understand it, there's people my age that are hateful that can learn it.”

Rae says taking time for yourself and experiencing queer joy is crucial. They have a lot of hope, and are staying hopeful by finding moments of joy. For Rae, that looks like planning for top surgery soon, going to the Sapphic Queer Dance Party at the Majestic in Madison and spending time with their partner and friends that support them.

Plus, being yourself will “piss people off.”

What happens in the next four years and beyond isn’t known. But Rae says no matter what, keep talking about gay history, especially to people outside of the LGBTQ community.

“Excuse my French, but fuck the people that are trying to say, like, ‘this isn't real, you're not real.’ We can go back in history and say we have always been there. You just chose not to write about us.”

Rae Thompson