Morgan and Joy Darling with three of their four children and their grandchild at Easter
DARCY BASS | Dallas Voice Intern
Editor@Dallasvoice.com
When Morgan Darling’s phone rang last summer, she didn’t expect it to be the new superintendent of Sherman ISD, Thomas O’Neal. “He called me directly after his appointment last summer,” she said. “He said, ‘You know, I’m really sorry with how things went. Can you tell me what issues you’re having?’”
It was the first real sign of progress for the Darling family in nearly two harrowing years. Their son — now finishing seventh grade in the Sherman school district — had become the central character in a story no child should have to live: a transgender boy repeatedly bullied, assaulted and ignored by his own school district.
The superintendent’s call was a stark contrast to the silence that had followed the family’s desperate pleas for help over the last two years.
“One of the major things [was that] we had been working with the school, and they just cut us off,” Morgan said. “They stopped responding. They were basically like, ‘So what?’”
But some things in Sherman have changed. A problematic superintendent — Tyson Bennett — is gone now. And a particularly hostile school board member — Anna Wiley, who was filmed holding hateful signs at Pride Prom — was voted out.
But not everything is different. Morgan and Joy Darling’s son, an exuberant child in private, practices the art of survival every morning before leaving for school.
“He only wears black to school because he doesn’t want to stand out,” Morgan said. “You can hear him. He says, ‘Hold on; I have to change my voice to my school voice.’”
At home, he sports a vibrant wardrobe and speaks his mind. But in the school hallways, he masks himself for safety.
“He’s had to do a lot of self-protection, to have a safer time at school. It’s disappointing,” Morgan said. “It feels like we’re going backwards. These kids aren’t safe being different in rural communities and even in urban areas.”
As parents, the Darlings walk a knife’s edge between wanting to protect their child and knowing he must live in a world that can be cruel.
“Unfortunately, I think that learning to mask is just the reality that we live with,” Morgan said.
“Understanding the social context is just gonna be a survival skill for him — knowing when it’s safe to be himself and when he has to protect himself.”
Yet the Darlings refuse to surrender to fear. They pour themselves into building resilience and pride in their children.
“We try to provide a safe space outside of school hours,” Joy said. “We take them to Pride events, places where they can be who they are proudly.”
At home, the children see their parents stand tall, even when the world wants them to be silent.
“We’re an openly gay couple,” Morgan said. “People see us living our lives as adults, I’m a lawyer, and Joy is a teacher. We’re becoming an example for others who don’t have any representation.”
The Darlings’ courage extends beyond their front door. Last fall, Morgan launched her own law firm. She called it one of the biggest changes of the past year.
“There’s a lot of reasons for it, but one of them is that I’m able to have more time with my family and also that I’m able to provide more advocacy for people in the community,” she explained.
Whether it’s attending Equality Texas events, fighting for a high school gay-straight alliance’s right to join a parade or standing at local school board meetings, Morgan shows her children what it means to fight back.
“If you want to pick on us, then you better have a good reason,” she said.
Her new law practice also gives her the power to serve clients who might otherwise go without legal help.
“There’s a lot of people in the LGBT community that are underpaid or unemployed because of their identity,” Morgan said. “I’m able to do payment plans where people pay me, like, $25 a month. It‘s something a lot of estate planning attorneys just wouldn’t do.”
Through it all, the Darlings’ son has grown stronger, but the toll is undeniable.
“I’ll tell you, the biggest change has been that he is more resilient than he was before,”
Morgan said. “The community hasn’t changed. He just does more masking.”
Despite the cruelty he’s endured, she said, their son remains focused on his dreams.
“He wants to be a lawyer,” Morgan said. “Throughout all of that, his main goal was not to get in trouble so he could get the most out of his education. And that was something that really impacted me. Here’s this kid getting assaulted. And he’s like, ‘I just don’t want to get in trouble.’”
Joy vividly remembers sitting in a meeting with school officials after an incident where the slurs targeting their son turned violent. She looked them in the eye and delivered a mother’s ultimatum.
“I told them point blank, ‘I understand that there’s rules and consequences, and that’s okay.
But I want you to know that, at home, the message he’s getting is that he will not be the next Matthew Shepard. Period.”
When she said that, Joy recalled, silence filled the room. “It’s like, you could see the color draining from their faces,” she said. “They didn’t even have that perspective on it.”
Amid the struggle, there have been unexpected moments of connection — a school administrator confiding quietly that he has two dads, offering their son a sliver of solidarity; new friendships forged with families like that of transgender Sherman High School graduate Max Hightower, who faced their own battles in the same district when the former superintendent tried to keep Max out of the school’s production of Oklahoma!
“It helped our family,” Morgan said of those connections. “Our kids didn’t feel alone. People were showing up for school board meetings for our kid and Max Hightower at the same time.”
While Sherman remains a small town where everyone knows everyone, the Darling family has found that courage can be contagious. Friends, neighbors, even strangers have spoken up for their son’s right to exist safely in his school.
It’s true that the future remains uncertain. Political winds in Texas continue to blow cold for LGBTQ+ families. But for Morgan, Joy and their children, the fight is far from over.
“We’re not ashamed of who we are,” Morgan said. “And I think that provides a little bit more comfort for our kids.”
As for their son, he may still wear black to school, but at home — and in his heart — he is already arguing cases and building a world where kids like him don’t have to hide.
“He knows where he’s going to law school,” Morgan says, beaming. “He can argue walls around me, and I’ve litigated cases in court.”
For now, one thing remains certain: the Darling family will keep fighting for their son’s right not just to survive, but to thrive.