Florida’s controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, otherwise known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, HB 1557, officially took effect on July 1st.
Aimed at schools, it seeks to ban the discussion of LGBTQ topics mainly at the primary grade level. However, it will also limit discussion when “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students”.
The bill was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis at the end of March and took effect Friday. President Joe Biden was one the most high-profile people to take the opportunity to again criticize it. In February, the President blasted it as “hateful”.
On Friday, Biden tweeted, “Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law takes effect today – the latest attempt by Republicans in state houses to target LGBTQI+ students, teachers, and families. Legislators shouldn’t be in the business of censoring educators, and @usedgov will do all in its power to protect students.”
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law takes effect today – the latest attempt by Republicans in state houses to target LGBTQI+ students, teachers, and families.
Legislators shouldn’t be in the business of censoring educators, and @usedgov will do all in its power to protect students.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 1, 2022
Related: Ron DeSantis signs Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
In Florida, GOP Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated the bill becoming law with a tweet posted yesterday.
“Florida law now officially prohibits injecting sexuality and gender ideology into elementary school curriculum. In Florida, we will protect our kids and support our parents.”
Florida law now officially prohibits injecting sexuality and gender ideology into elementary school curriculum.
In Florida, we will protect our kids and support our parents. pic.twitter.com/rxjvnxEH9K
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 3, 2022
Many others on the far right of the GOP also celebrated the bill becoming law. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reshared DeSantis’s tweet, saying, “This is the way. Protect children from this evil gender confusion lie that is being forced on them.”
This is the way.
Protect children from this evil gender confusion lie that is being forced on them. https://t.co/RZHfg5q871— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 3, 2022
Most LGBTQ advocates have blasted ‘Don’t Say Gay’ for the impact it will have on LGBTQ students and the children of same-sex parents. Equality Florida has called the potential effects of the legislation “chilling”.
The vagueness of the law had left some school districts struggling with exactly how to implement it. Last week, we reported on how teachers in Orange County, FL have been told to scrape off rainbow stickers from classrooms, and remove photos of their families from their desks if they have a same-sex spouse.
They’ve also been instructed to report if a student comes out as LGBTQ, according to a local teachers’ organization.
At a fiery, four-hour Leon County school board meeting last Tuesday, a new “LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide” was agreed. It controversially says schools will notify parents — by form — if a student who is “open about their gender identity” is in a physical education class or on an overnight trip.
Advocates believe this will out LGBTQ students to the wider community, even if another part of the guide states that a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression “should not be shared with others without their input and permission.”
Spurned on partly by the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ controversy, California Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday posted a special July 4th message to Florida residents, encouraging them to think about coming to California if they cherish an inclusive, welcoming and diverse state that allows them to exercise all their freedoms.
We’re about to celebrate Independence Day — but Freedom is under attack by Republican leaders in states like Florida.
Banning books.
Restricting speech.
Making it harder to vote.
Criminalizing women and doctors.It’s time to stand up. Don’t let them take your freedom. pic.twitter.com/cFI5UzgZzX
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 3, 2022
James
De Satanis has made his place in hell.
fur_hunter
Biden needs to get off his F UC KING A.S.S. and do something other than just sit and complain about $ H!T!….. ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS…… GET IT!??? Tell Manchin and Sinema to GO EAT $ H!T and D IE!!!. I would love to hear that both of them had been ru n over by a bus and turned into road pizza. I would be doing the Snoopy Happy Dance for a week. More Democrat politicians need to LOUDLY come out against republiKKKans and point out their Asininity and STUPIDITY
white-queer-african
@fur_hunter, I cannot agree with you more. You fight fire with fire, not being nice. Call a f*cking spade a shovel. The repukelicans are not just destroying democracy in the US, they are destroying society. The DOJ must charge Dumph and lock him up. The mid-terms are looming.
LumpyPillows
And that would work? Right.
dario717
I hope that Biden will use all of the power of the federal government to protect teachers, as well. I literally do not know how a teacher in Florida can explain what comes out of a prism after light goes in without violating this hateful law.
humble charlie
don’t be so quick to believe anything biden says; he is as much a pathological liar as trump. he’ll say something people like only when he knows he’ll be stopped from doing it (munchin and senema are just red herrings).
dario717
Bot.
LumpyPillows
Biden is as much a liar as Trump? No one is as much a liar as Trump. Not even close. Joe has some issues, but being purposefully dishonest is not one of them. Troll.
Den
Prove it or be laughed at for stupidity.
GlobeTrotter
I’m in the minority here as I don’t oppose this law as much as most other gay people do. After reading the actual text of the law, which I doubt most people have actually done, the only thing it prohibits is the discussion of sex or gender topics from K through 3 grades. That’s it! It doesn’t prohibit anyone from being gay, all it says is that teachers are not allowed to introduce or impose their own views of sex and gender on 6 to 9 year olds. I don’t have a problem with that.
I’ve been through over 20 years of schooling, from 1st grade to grad school and beyond, and I don’t ever remember any of my teachers of professors discussing their private lives in class. To this day I have no idea who was married, who was single, who was gay, etc. There were no pictures of their families on their desks, they did not wear their sexuality on their sleeves, they did not talk about their gender or sexual identities. Sure, there were one or two teachers that I suspected were gay, then there was my totally hot guidance counselor in high school who gave me endless erections and sleepless nights, but that was as far as it went, and it would have been very inappropriate for me to have asked any of my teachers about their sexuality. The only thing my teachers and professors ever did…was teach. Poor me!
I don’t know when it became such an outrageous suggestion that teachers leave their personal lives at home and just teach reading, writing and arithmetic in the classroom.
Kangol2
You may be a rarity. I remember my 4th grade teacher getting married and all of us bringing her little presents. We learned about another teacher’s severely disabled child, and how rough it was for her and her husband. I remember meeting several high school teachers’ spouses, in the local store, at events, etc., and hearing about how another had “found a wife” and was going to get married, etc. Some teachers kept images of their spouses and children on their desks, and so on. Not a single one of these people ever dared mention a same-sex partner or their orientation, probably because they could be fired. But certainly straight teachers do mention their private lives, and have for generations. This law singles out same-sex teachers and children, and also endangers same-sex and trans children by forcing schools to report them to their parents if they share anything about being LGBTQ with the school staff, including school counselors, even if the parents are right-wing and anti-LGBTQ.
GlobeTrotter
@Kangol2: I was a teacher for 15 years, and although I taught adults, the number one rule of teaching was still the same: you leave your private life at the door. It’s not your job as a teacher to introduce your personal life and/or opinions to those you instruct. You’re there to teach them how to think, not WHAT to think. I would even go so far as to say that it’s malpractice for teachers to be talking about their weddings and children and spouses, etc. Such individuals need to realize that as a teacher, it’s never about YOU – it’s about your students!
DuMaurier
That’s definitely generational. I’m 63, and when I was in school I didn’t even think teachers were “real” people with personal lives–or at least I didn’t think about it. Which is weird because my mother was a teacher; I don’t know how I put that together. But I work in a middle school now, and teachers not only have personal pics on their desks, some cover the wall by their desks with collages of photos of their spouses and children; vacation pics, wedding photos, etc etc. It doesn’t seem like it’s any kind of distraction or hurts the student-teacher relationship.
RickHeathen
The abuse I went through as a gay kid in school started in second grade. I was not out, but they sensed I was different. And the bullying began then and didn’t let up for over a decade. It’s not about discussing sex. It’s about young people learning that the LGBTQ community exists and it’s natural for some people to be like that, that it’s okay, and they shouldn’t single people out for ridicule and bully them for being different. No one ever told them that, and I paid the price for it.
What they did to me altered the trajectory of my life. I’ll be 53 this year, and I still have the damage from those years of childhood trauma.
If anyone is curious to know how bad it got for me, my autobiography is free at Smashwords under Rick Haydn Horst.
GlobeTrotter
@RickHeathen: I’m sorry for the abuse you went through as a child, but we’re talking about different things here, aren’t we? On the one hand teachers should keep their private lives private, and on the other, we have to make sure that schools are a safe place for all kids. Many kids get bullied, and for different reasons, I was bullied as a kid for being smart. Teachers and administrators can still help and protect kids that are being bullied without bringing their own private lives into the conversation. If a kid is being bullied for being gay, then maybe the guidance counselor needs to be involved, maybe a meeting with the child’s parents might be necessary, but none of this requires teachers to bring their own gender ideology or sexuality into the mix. Again, teaching isn’t about YOU, it’s about your students!
RickHeathen
Globetrotter,
It’s about the reality of the world. It’s about treating people with respect simply because they exist. It’s about not singling out LGBTQ students and teachers, and letting what is, be. Straight teachers are not prohibited from doing just that, as long as whatever it is, remains in a heterosexual context. The moment you single out LGBTQ students and teachers, it sends a message that being LGBTQ is unacceptable, something to be ashamed of, and something that should be locked away tightly into a closet so the heterosexual bigots can keep their fantasies about the world and their supremacy at the cost of the lives of LGBTQ people who have not chosen to be what we are, but because the heterosexual bigots refuse to accept this, we must pay the price? Oh, Hell No.
GlobeTrotter
@RickHeathen: I think you’re completely overreacting. As I’ve read the law, no one is being singled out because of his/her sexuality. The law states that gender and sexuality should not be taught in K through 3rd. grades, but rather at an AGE APPROPRIATE grade level, in other words as of grade 4 (approx. 10 years of age).
Teachers have been leaving their private lives at home and teaching reading, writing and arithmetic for hundreds of years now. Why is it all of a sudden discrimination to keep your private life private and refrain from introducing it to 6 to 9 year olds? If you’re a gay teacher, that’s completely fine, no one is telling you how to live your life or whom to love. But why MUST that be a part of your students’ lives as well? Must our sexuality be the sole defining characteristic in our lives?
RickHeathen
Globetrotter,
You write [The law states that gender and sexuality should not be taught in K through 3rd. grades, but rather at an AGE APPROPRIATE grade level, in other words as of grade 4 (approx. 10 years of age).]
It’s left ambiguous on purpose as to who the target is, but we know who it targets. And who decides at what grade level is “age appropriate”? The bill doesn’t even explain in detail what “instruction” means, and that’s intentional. It’s a sh*tshow of a bill and what it says in ambiguity leaves them able to apply it as intended…against the LGBT community.
GlobeTrotter
@RickHeathen: I really get the impression that you’ve never actually read the text of the law.
“It’s left ambiguous on purpose as to who the target is, but we know who it targets.”
-No one is being targeted! All the law said is that sexuality and gender should not be discussed in K through 3rd grades, it can only be discussed as of grade 4. It doesn’t single out any type of sexuality at all.
“And who decides at what grade level is ‘age appropriate’?”
-It says so right there in the text of the law…no discussions of sexuality or gender in K through third grade. Discussions are allowed as of grade 4.
“The bill doesn’t even explain in detail what ‘instruction’ means”
-I’m not sure how much clearer the law can get, it says no discussions in the classroom on sexuality or gender. I don’t see the ambiguity here.
RickHeathen
Globetrotter
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
GlobeTrotter
RickHeathen
No, I’m being neutral, rational and factual, the way I approach any subject matter. What upsets you is perhaps the fact that I refuse to jump onto the emotional bandwagon, but to date I’ve yet to find any evidence that substantiates your allegations.
LumpyPillows
The problem we have is that there is some validity to what has been going on to show that some teachers and other school personnel – a vast minority – have overstepped in promoting issues inappropriate for elementary school. So, you are right. Like all left-wing overstepping, it is then used like a club to go too far by the right. This nonsense the gender warriors are pushing is being used o undermine all the hard-won LGBT victories we have had. Keep demanding that a trans woman is a woman and see how bad we get smacked down for that nonsense. Ironically, it will be trans people who lose the most. Also, ironically it usually is straight person saying all the incendiary things, and not real trans people. Trans people know better.
GlobeTrotter
@LumpyPillows: Exactly! There are tons of TikTok videos out there of queer teachers having roundtable discussions with elementary school kids where they talk about their gender ideology and what it means to be non-binary, two-spirit, etc. I’ve even seen videos of drag shows at schools and trans teachers telling FIRST graders that doctors “guess” the gender of babies at birth and that when the doctor “guesses” wrong, the child ends up becoming transgender. I’m sorry but elementary school is NOT the time or place for such discussions. Your job is to each reading, writing and arithmetic, not explain the spectrum of gender identities or explaining what it means to be non-binary. And just like you said LumpyPillows, Republicans point to these videos as urgent justification for the law in Florida. Trans-activists have only themselves to blame.
Den
You must not read well enough to understand the part that will also limit discussion when “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students”. That covers a lot of ground.
And if it is so narrow, why exactly are school districts saying that teachers must remove images of their families from their desks if they are in same sex relationships? Are you too dull to understand that relationships are about more than sex?
” I don’t ever remember any of my teachers of professors discussing their private lives in class. To this day I have no idea who was married, who was single, who was gay, etc. There were no pictures of their families on their desks”
You were either oblivious, sheltered, disingenuous, or dull. And in the lower grades all families, relationships, marriages are presented as heterosexual. They ARE presented in texts and reading lessons from kindergarten on up. First reading texts are brimming over with mommies and daddies, images are brimming with heteronormative (and usually racially uniform) families.
As for “reading, writing and arithmetic”: 1. texts for those in early grades are full of “normal” families as well as “normal” boy girl pairing, and 2. school is also intended to teach social skills and the importance of community, civics, propriety and so on. One cannot encourage inclusion and civility if the law prohibits it!
Den
“You’re there to teach them how to think, not WHAT to think.”
And by refusing to deal with certain issues as well as deflecting questions you are definitely teaching them WHAT to think and not at all how to think, In tandem with your firs post on this thread I am pretty darn certain that your claim to be a teacher for 15 years is the disingenuousness of a troll.
Additionally the actions of various school districts in Florida make it clear you have not thoroughly read the law or are lacking in reading comprehension (thus giving additional evidence that your claim to be a teacher is a lie).
Den
“Exactly! There are tons of TikTok videos out there of queer teachers having roundtable discussions with elementary school kids where they talk about their gender ideology and what it means to be non-binary, two-spirit, etc. ”
Anyone who actually was a teacher for 15 years SHOULD have critical intellectual skills strong enough to understand that the number of TikTok videos you stumble across does not constitute any sort of real survey or valid empirical examination. Your claim is laughable and makes it even more certain you never were a teacher, or perhaps just a really, really poorly skilled one.
bud278
This isn’t just about teachers talking or teaching about sex; it means a child, when asked what they did over the Christmas vacation, can’t say their daddies took them to Disneyworld. It means a female teacher can’t have a picture of her wife on her desk. This is wrong. I don’t think sex education should be in classrooms until at least 12-13 years of age, like 6-7th grade, but it is actually against the first amendment to say that you can’t mention your family without repercussion.
bud278
Do you think a child would be reprimanded if they talked about their mommy and daddy? Or that a female teacher could be fired for talking about her husband giving her a valentine? Is that a discussion of sexuality? If not, then a child talking about his two mommies should not be a problem either, nor a male teacher talking about his husband. All relationships are based in sexuality in some way, so any discussion of any human relationship would therefore be verboten. Do you not think this is a problem? Do you really think it is healthy to leave all human interactions outside a classroom? Shouldn’t children be learning about society and what makes a healthy society while young enough to incorporate it into their own ethic? I’m not talking graphic stuff here, just an understanding that there are different kinds of families in the world, and that’s ok. But that apparently is now illegal in Florida because Ron DeSantis is a wannabe MagaNazi.
Joshooeerr
There’s what a law actually says. And then there’s how it will be used. And if you don’t know there’s a difference you are being wilfully stupid.
Mario
CIVIQS poll (July 3, 2022):
Joe Biden’s approval rating: 30% (lowest on record); disapproval rating: 62%
Harvard/Harris poll (July 1, 2022):
“Does the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion make you more likely to vote in the midterms for a Democrat, for a Republican or not affect how you vote in the midterms?”
Answer: “Thirty-six percent said Democrat, 36 percent said Republican, and 29 percent said no effect.”
So Biden is the worst president in history and abortion will have no impact on the coming midterms.
This must make Democrats very, very sad.
Vince
Not even close troll. Trump will go down in history as the worst president in history. 1 million covid deaths, instigated an insurrection, a possible civil war, a rise in white nationalism / fascism, etc
At any rate no matter how people feel about biden they’ll still get in line and vote Democrat. Just like we did last time. Anything is better than the shit show Republicans.
still_onthemark
The anti-abortion fanatics won’t stop making news, though.
The very first week, we learn of a 10-year-old pregnant child abuse victim who was refused an abortion in Ohio.
Then a reporter asked Gov. Noem of SD (our future president?) what she thinks. After refusing to answer the question, twice, she seems to think the 10-year-old is some kind of s l u t or something!
There are a lot of weeks between now and November, and Republicans are going to say stupid and cruel things every week. Democrats will probably keep control of the Senate because of the abortion issue.
Steve9999
OH MRS. DESANTIS….HERE YOU ARE POSTING AGAIN.
LumpyPillows
So, when the polls swing in Biden’s favor, will you give it up, Mario? It is refreshing that you have given up on the criminal Trump. Shame you don’t have anyone better than DeSantis to bottom for.
Fahd
It’s sad to see the United States, through the actions of the Supreme Court and demagogues like DeSantis, take more and more steps (some of them big) backwards to the pre civil war era of polarization among the States. The 1850s wasn’t a good time for the rights of women, homosexuals, or really any minority.
With a Congress in gridlock for decades, the courts have been the best hope for social justice and advancement in recent years. That’s gone now with the current Supreme Court. I hope someone figures out what to do before the right wing minority takes over completely and irreversibly.
CityguyUSA
Then you can’t say str8 either.
Den
Since straight is the obvious default, nobody really has to say it. It is like when people say “well, we don’t have a straight pride day!” Somehow they fail to understand that every day is straight pride, every crowded street essentially a straight pride parade.
johncp56
Funny the republicans are what the children should be kept safe from, they are major groomers what scum that guys is and his followers