Florida’s state board of education voted to expand its ban on any mention of LGBT topics through 12th grade, effectively censoring the topic for all grades. This move is intended to protect the rights of parents who don’t want their children to learn that gay people exist, but it is a slap in the face to gay families in Florida, as well as to people who are comfortable with discussions of reality.
The DeSantis administration next month could effectively bar all public school teachers from providing classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, a move that would expand Florida’s controversial 2022 law and go even further than the legislation Republican lawmakers are pushing in Tallahassee this spring.
A proposed State Board of Education rule, scheduled for a vote next month, says teachers in grades 4 to 12 “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction” on either topic, expanding the prohibition in last year’s law that critics dubbed “don’t say gay.” Teachers who violate the rule could face suspension or revocation of their teaching licenses.
Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, views the suggested rule as part of “larger, disturbing trend” where Florida’s Republican leaders seek to use “every lever of government to censor conversations about LGBTQ people,” said Brandon Wolf, the group’s spokesman.
The goal, he said, seems to be to paint LGBTQ people as “wrong,” Wolf said, “or that we should be written out of society.”
“Show me in the law where it says ‘gay'” was the key comeback to any complaints about the bill last year.
As I learned from a resource I cannot recall at the moment, there were several laws in the Jim Crow era that targeted Black people without mentioning Black people.
Florida makes it clear that it wants LGBTQ kids in the closet, out of sight and out of mind. It is a particularly cruel move because high school students are already navigating so many social and emotional issues at this age, and it will make their already complicated lives more complicated. This type treatment could also embolden bullies that always pounce in the most vulnerable. The only option available to them is suppression and repression, or find another school or perhaps another state.
I saw a column in the Florida news where a columnist wrote that the country may be appalled by DeSantis’ bully and cruel tactics, but the voters of Florida thinks it’s just fine. When a headline said that a family of a trans youth planned to leave Florida now that health care was outlawed, the Florida response (he wrote) was a big smile.
Only when the government begins to take away a right that matters to YOU do you rise up and battle back. At some point in FL, that will probably happen considering the atmosphere now.
That’s exactly why the Republican Party has targeted trans. It represents a small minority that would rather get on with life. Republicans see it as an other that is a good candidate as a non-existent boogy man. Republican’s like Desantis only target those they think they can push around.
It’s easy to pick on a tiny minority like trans. Only 1%-1.5%.
If the governor is ignorant, the legislators are ignorant and the people of Florida accept this and remain quiet and ignorant then I think universities out of state, like NYU, should disqualify Florida students for admission as being uneducated or not educated enough.
agreed
Most fertile crops in Florida are ignorance and stupidity.
yup
Fascists always target vulnerable groups to normalize hate within their mob-mentality base. It reminds me of the increasingly anti-Semitic laws passed in Germany from 1933-1939. The legal targeting starts small with “limitations”, “suspensions”, “until further notice” etc. But at the bottom of the slope it’s outright bans, property confiscation and public shaming. He’s as much a disgrace to democracy as he is a reminder of totalitarianism’s past and future.
That’s why I call him a fascist.
Nailed it, Callisto
I sure hope that school districts across the north are actively recruiting in Florida for staffing storages. I’m certain that there are many great conscientous teachers there who would, with minor assistance such as with moving expenses, abandon the fascist leaning state.
Seems like sanctioned discrimination. Where are the legal challenges?
What about the policy-created harms this law could produce?
News flash, not one less child will decide he is gay or straight. But the fascists demagogues know this.
But they will live in increasing fear, for good reason–the emboldening of bullies
Good morning Diane and everyone,
This one is just plain weird:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/19/florida-republican-bill-girls-periods-school/11504099002/
I think the Republicans are going about this all wrong. They should just ban periods.
The high school protests should be epic…
YES!!!!! LOOKING FORWARD TO THOSE!!!!!!!
If this passes, educators in Flor-uh-duh will have a RESPONSIBILITY, whatever the cost, to SAY GAY, loud and clear.
I was thinking that all the kids should come in to school every day with shirts that say “GAY!”
excellent idea
After years of working in the textbook industry, I taught high school for a few years. A way to cap off my career. A chance to apply the stuff I had been cooking up for decades. I taught English, Debate, Theatre, AP Composition, and Film.
At one point, my principal let me know that one of my COLLEAGUES had requested that I BE FIRED. What was my offense?
Well, I had asked each student in a Debate class of 12th-graders to list on a piece of paper a couple topics that he or she would be interested in debating and to pass these in. Then, because the students requested that I do so, I read the topics aloud to the class. One of the topics that one of the students had listed was transgender bathrooms.
All I did was read the topic from the list of topics that students had submitted. I made no comment on it AT ALL. Again, ALL that I did was read, like this,
Resolved: Schools should do away with dress codes.
Resolved: Advertising by lawyers should be made illegal.
Resolved: Schools should not give homework.
Resolved: Schools should have designated transgender bathrooms.
Resolved: Genetic modification of babies should be banned by international law.
And so on.
And my COLLEAGUE, a Christian fundamentalist Taliban sort whose daughter was in my class, went to my principal and asked that I be FIRED for this.
I Flor-uh-duh now, I probably would have been.
Fundamentalist morons are everywhere in Flor-uh-duh (though almost half of the state is blue). They are difficult to avoid. And they are loud. And armed.
If this passes, and it is likely to, then that’s the end of Gay Student Alliances, pride symbols in schools, and so on. But I don’t think the troglodytes know what or who they are dealing with, how large a percentage of American youth are totally down with fluid sexual and gender identities. I taught in ultra-conserative, ultra-redneck Flor-uh-duh, and my students were, almost to a person, enlightened about these matters.
As others have mentioned or hinted at above, this bill could, ironically, be a very good thing because it could be one of those moments that serve as a catalyst, as a wake-up call. It could lots of students out of classrooms and into the streets to protest.
cx: It could bring lots of students . . .