Education throughout the blue and red states of America continues to diverge, as demonstrated through Florida’s recent “Don’t Say Gay” law. After passing in the Republican-controlled house 69-47, and the Republican-controlled senate two weeks later 22-17, the Florida House Bill 1557, which forbids the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school classrooms, has been signed into law. The law was signed on Monday, March 28, by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is speculated to run as the Republican candidate for the 2024 US presidential election.
Commonly dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” the policy has raised national controversy for its marginalization of the LGBTQ community. Among the law’s opponents are Democrats, LGBTQ advocates, and members of the White House. The law has also been condemned by the Walt Disney Company, which released a public statement expressing their promise to aid in its repeal.
This law follows a year of increased censorship surrounding the LGBTQ community and its history. Notably, in November of 2021, the book “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which details the coming-of-age experience of a Black gay man, was banned from shelves in Florida’s Flagler County.
Critics of the law argue that it would make classrooms unsafe spaces for students with LGBTQ parents or family members, as well as for students who identify as LGBTQ themselves. According to a 2015 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) of surveyed LGBTQ students by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a reported 34% of respondents experienced bullying while on school property. With this percentage already disproportionately high, critics worry that in the aftermath of the new law, the percentage could yet increase.
In addition to its stigmatization of the LGBTQ community, the law has come under widespread scrutiny for its ambiguous language. The law states that teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity will be banned “in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” With no explicit definition of “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate,” critics have stated concerns that educators and school districts in Florida could face future lawsuits from parents who deem any conversation about sexual orientation or sexual identity to be inappropriate. Some critics argue that the law is an obstruction of teachers’ first amendment right to freedom of speech.
Another impact of the law is its effect on how American history is taught. Its prevention of teaching the history of same-sex marriage in the United State, or even the extent to which the LGBTQ community was affected by the AIDS epidemic leaves a gaping hole in the Florida school curriculum.
But most shocking is the wave of initiatives in other states similar to Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law. On Thursday, April 7th, Alabama lawmakers advanced an almost identical measure that would prohibit discussions surrounding sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary schools. Alabama, Iowa, and Missouri are just a few among over a dozen other states considering similar laws.
In response to the law’s passage, Florida parents, teachers and students alike joined forces in protesting its installation. Openly gay Flagler County high school student Jack Petocz is the founder of the student activist organization Recall FCSB (Flagler County School Board), who decided to protest the law.
In an interview with Teen Vogue, Petocz remarked: “We’ve made a lot of tremendous progress with open discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation and stopping the stigmatization of it… this [law] will cause stigma to return to LGBTQ+ people and it will cause this divide to return.”
Petocz made national headlines after organizing a student walkout in opposition to the law, and for his subsequent suspension from his high school. Following an online petition to rescind Petocz’s suspension, which gained the overwhelming support of 7,557 people, his record was formally cleared and today bears no tarnish. Nevertheless, the county’s shocking retaliation against a peaceful, student-led protest calls further attention to the repression of the LGBTQ community in Florida.
Increasingly, factual information in educational settings as well as the rights of students to free speech and peaceful assembly is being censored in the American South. It seems that the polarizing divide between blue and red, Democratic and Republican, has extended so far as to impact the very essence of the American education system in its erasure of the identities of LGBTQ students.
