#don't say gay bills

[liskantope]

Since the "LGBT+ content in schools" issue keeps coming up, here are some of my thoughts directly on it.

Charitably speaking, I think conservatives are afraid of a particular, narrow, modern, very SJ-ish social agenda and belief system being shoved down their kids' throats. I do have some sympathy with this concern, although I'm not sure the extent to which anything is actually being taught that I as a (more progressive-thinking) parent would object to: I do hear what I would consider disturbing stories but have little way of knowing how embellished and/or unrepresentative they are.

So anyway, a bunch of conservatives have whipped up a moral panic about it and are fighting back with legislating (what are, at least according to some) bans against talking about the existence of gay or trans people at all, or anything about race that might possibly make white kids uncomfortable in any way. Which is absolutely absurd, a "cure" worse than the (possible) disease.

(And disallowing gay/trans/queer teachers from, for instance, disclosing that they have a same-gender partner, even though it's been normalized for decades and is still permissible for a teacher to bring up their opposite-gender partner, is just outright homophobic, period. That shouldn't be too hard to see.)

I've tried reading the legislation (for instance, the so-named-by-opponents "Don't Say Gay" bill), and I'm bewildered as to what it actually adds up to or how it can even function as legislation. What a lot of it says amounts to moderate, common-sense-sounding guidelines that don't actually appear to demand that "gay" not be mentioned in any way, but it relies on phrases like "appropriate for their age group". Well, who gets to decide that? How is this legislation ever enforced or teaching ever policed based on it?

My only guesses as to what conservatives think they're doing is that (1) the laws are almost meaningless but serve as a grandstanding move meant to signal "Hey look, we're on the right side, we're doing something about it!"; and (2) since the wording of the law requires a ton of individual judgment and interpretation, perhaps in the most conservative school zones where all the people in power are sufficiently conservative it really could be used as a sledgehammer to ban ANY mention of anything they don't like.

Meanwhile, I think there could be some common-sense guidelines that allow teachers to bring up the existence of gay and trans people and allude to the issues and even (to kids above a certain age) discuss some of the civil rights battles surrounding them, without shoving any particular highly controversial political ideology down their throats. The idea is to stick with basic facts about social reality. Gay and bi people exist (at the very least, in the sense of people who choose to pursue same-sex relationships). Trans people exist (at the very least, in the sense of people who identify as a different gender than indicated by their sex at birth), and some of them choose to go on hormones or get sex reassignment surgery. Gay and trans people are people too. There has been and still is a lot of stigma against them, and there have been struggles to secure them rights for certain things -- for instance, same-sex couples couldn't get married in most places until last decade! By the way, kids, I prefer they/them pronouns. You're encouraged to think for yourselves about what that might mean and how to feel about it, but it's a preference I'm asking you to respect and you should respect such preferences among your classmates. Mr. So-and-so who teaches in the next classroom has a husband. You probably know several other gay and bi people, and they're people too. Some of you may come to identify or already identify as not straight or not cis.

Of course that won't satisfy everyone, and it can't be done in an entirely non- politically biased way, and conservatives may see plenty of reason to complain that these things are even being mentioned or that the teacher has gone as far as normalizing people who fall under the queer umbrella as human beings without at least criticizing them as having lost their way.

But it's, to my view, subtly but significantly different from very positive actions that go beyond neutrally describing reality with an underlying default of respecting others. That would include enthusiastically pushing kids to analyze their genders and sexualities all the time, telling them "You can be whatever gender you want; what gender would you like to be now?", teaching highly politicized lessons on social justice which involves students rating their degrees of marginalization and separating the room into "oppressors" and "oppressees", constantly centering everything around a scrupulosity-triggering activist mindset, and many more things.

#lgbt+ content in schools #don't say gay bills #culture war #social justice

[themoderatespeaks]

#Ugh #Missouri #Legislation #Schools #Lgbtq+ #Don't Say Gay bills

[gwydionmisha]

#Missouri #'Don't Say Gay' Bill #Censorship #LGBTQIA+ #News

[trash-and-trash-accessories]

This show fucking rules.

#King of the hill #trans rights #trans #hank hill #trans hank hill #bobby hill tboy swag #queer #gay #nonbinary #non-binary #lgbtq #lgbt #koth #dale gribble #peggy hill #bill dauterive #lenore dauterive #trans bill #I don't care what people say Bill is transgender to me #and she deserves happiness #a transbian QUEEN

[esmiara]

What do you mean Chuuya's official character song (Darkness My Sorrow) indirectly refers a few times to Dazai and tells he holds the key to the bird cage that is his world. Wha- why is official content always the gayest and gives the most amazing symbolism??

#skk #the answer is fujoshis i guess #they KNOW skk and sskk are an amazing tool to promote bsd #thus they give us the best gay stuff you'd ever see #but i really doubt at times whether or not it is only an advertising tool when there is stuff like that #especially when companies like hoyoverse doesn't take as much advantage of Haikaveh as Bones does with soukoku #i guess you could say haikaveh isn't THE ship of genshin impact so that's why there isn't as much stuff #but come on hoyoverse don't you want to make money?? #do like bsd's staff #give us the gays *slipping a bill in their pocket* #(though dazai is bi) #holy skirt why did i ramble so much in the tags

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Owning them Libs: Disney drops the UNO reverse card on Ron Desantis

#video #tiktok #tiktoks #funny #lmao #wtf #florida #usa #united states #united states of america #disney #disney world #walt disney world #ron desantis #conservative #conservatives #republican #republicans #don't say gay bill #homophobia #tizzyent

[ferretwhomst]

alright guys. poll time

just wanted to ask because from what i can tell the gf fandom doesn't really seem to have a general fandom-wide consensus on this ship. rbs would be appreciated!!! also feel free to elaborate in the tags which option you chose and why! i'd love to hear people's reasoning :-)

#personally i have super mixed feelings on billford #people sometimes boil down their relationship to “haha they fight like a divorced couple” and yeah it's an easy generalization but #i really hate when people skip over the aspects of their dynamic which are Fucked Up #like... bill was abusive and manipulative to ford from the start. and ford was fucking OBSESSED with him #and his time with bill left a lasting mark on him for years and years #that's not even including how bill fucking tortured ford during weirdmageddon #my point is they aren't HEALTHY. they never were #and i think the only way to do their relationship justice is to keep the unhealthy dynamic #while also acknowledging how fucked up it is #there isn't a single world where ford is normal about bill and vice versa #i don't necessarily mean that romantically tho because i don't really ship billford myself #i'm just observing from the sidelines as i take a bite out of my platonic stan twins and fiddauthor fanworks yk #ok this got long. #what i'm trying to say is their dynamic was fucked up as hell and it would stay like that even if they were gay 4 each other #anyways #ferret rambles #gravity falls #bill cipher #gf bill cipher #stanford pines #ford pines #grunkle ford #gf ford #billford #poll

[bisquid]

Okay okay okay

So we all know about the Disney vs DeSantis ridiculousness happening in Florida where DeSantis is being his usual self and Disney is being the literal embodiment of that 'the worst person you know just made a good point' meme, and now DeSantis is trying to revoke Disneyland's Extra Special Uwu Legal Status

Anyway

It turns out in a fantastic turn of events

That the document giving Disneyland those special powers was to stand 'until 21 years after the death of the last looking descendant of King Charles III', which is apparently a way to get around a ban or something on perpetuity clauses

Anyway

The thing I find hilarious is that the end of the article I was reading finished with

'Buckingham Palace declined to comment'

#disney vs DeSantis #don't say gay bill #i don't want Disney to win i want DeSantis to lose

[cassowariess]

I really wish media outlets would name house and senate bills correctly instead of things like "Don't say Gay bill" because it took me, a British person AGES to find the official documentation of the three anti-trans bills being pushed through in Florida. I'd wager it takes Americans ages to find the official text of the bills too.

No wonder the average news viewer doesn't know how abhorrent and cruel these bills are.

Anyway, for anyone else struggling to find them:

CS/SB 254: Treatments for Sex Reassignment

SB 1438: Protection of Children (name makes me want to vom because it's so disingenous)

CS/SB 1320: Child Protection in Public Schools (the infamous Don't Say Gay bill).

#transgender #trans rights #anyway now that i've found them they're even more abhorrent than I imagined #and so obviously vague in order to abuse power at will #lgbtq rights #transphobia #florida #SB 1438 #CS/SB 254 #CS/SB 1320 #don't say gay bill

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A Florida Republican thinks the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law doesn’t go far enough and wants to expand it.

The state’s anti-LGBTQ+ “Parental Rights in Education Law,” which was signed into law last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), bans the state’s schools from teaching about LGBTQ+ history and issues in grades K­­–3 and restricts the teaching of those issues “in a manner that is not age-appropriate” up to grade 12.

Earlier this week, state Rep. Adam Anderson (R) filed House Bill 1223, which would expand the law to ban “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in pre-K through the eighth grade. It would also expand the law to apply to private and charter schools as well as public schools, and requires all public schools to acknowledge that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”

The bill would also require teachers to call students by pronouns that align with the sex they were assigned at birth.

In a statement, Anderson said that the bill “promotes parental rights, transparency, and state standards in Florida schools. It requires that lessons for Florida’s students are age-appropriate, focused on education, and free from sexualization and indoctrination.”

Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer responded to the bill in a statement on Tuesday.

“Don’t Say LGBTQ policies have already resulted in sweeping censorship, book banning, rainbow Safe Space stickers being peeled from classroom windows, districts refusing to recognize LGBTQ History Month, and LGBTQ families preparing to leave the state altogether,” Maurer said. “This legislation is about a fake moral panic, cooked up by Governor DeSantis to demonize LGBTQ people for his own political career.”

“Governor DeSantis and the lawmakers following him are hellbent on policing language, curriculum, and culture,” Maurer continued. “Free states don’t ban books or people.”

“The DeSantis regime isn’t satisfied with a hostile takeover of traditional public schools,” he said of the bill’s expansion to include private and charter schools. “They envision a future where LGBTQ families have no school choice to find dignity or respect.”

It’s widely assumed that Gov. DeSantis will run for President on his right-wing education platform. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said that Florida’s law doesn’t go far enough and Donald Trump suggested changing federal law to punish any teachers that discuss trans identity in the classroom.

Numerous medical and mental health studies and associations have found hat affirming the gender identities of trans youth reduces their mental anguish and suicidality.

#us politics #news #lgbtq nation #lgbtqia+ rights #lgbtqia+ #lgbtqia+ representation #florida #gov. ron desantis #don't say gay bill #parental rights in education #adam anderson #florida legislature #Florida house of representatives #House Bill 1223 #Equality Florida #Jon Harris Maurer #censorship #book burning #book bans #fake moral panic #education #education system #2023 #fascism #conservatives #gop #republicans #gop policy #gop platform

[politijohn]

A handful of anti-LGBTQ bills have went into effect this month:

Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill - bars teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity starting in kindergarten up to age 9

South Dakota passed a bill that places restrictions on LGBTQ+ topics in higher education

Tennessee's bill bans teachers from educating young students about “LGBTQ lifestyle issues”

Tennessee passed another bill that will pull funding from state schools that allow trans students to compete on sports teams

Indiana, South Dakota, and Utah all banned trans women and girls competing in sports

Alabama's bill prevents trans students from using facilities that match their gender identity

Alabama also bars teachers of kindergarten kids through to 10- and 11-year-olds from teaching anything related to LGBTQ+ topics

#lgbtq #lgbt #important #equality #bigotry #florida #don't say gay bill #alabama #tennessee #south dakota #indiana #utah #politics #us politics #government #news

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #2022 #twitter #tweet #gov. ron desantis #Adam Best #education system #education reform #department of education #stop w.o.k.e. act #stop wrongs against our kids and employees act #don't say gay bill #parental rights in education #gop #conservatives #Republicans

[gwydionmisha]

#'Don't Say Gay' Bill #Iowa #Queer Youth #Forced Outing #News

[goldeneclipsee]

I live in Florida

And they're expanding the "Don't say Gay" bill/law

How will this affect me?

Will I be fine or will I not be able to represent myself?

Will i be able to say I'm nonbinary, to bring my nonbinary flag fan?

How much will this restrict?

Even so, I will not stand for this

Do say Gay yall. Say gay.

#gay pride #nonbinary #enby #don't say gay #don't say gay bill

[typhlonectes]

#lgbtq+ #gay stuff #trans issues #protect trans kids #say gay #don't say gay bill #politics #USA

[somewhere-south-of-neutral]

The Heat is Oppressive

(Transcript in Image Descriptions)

-------------------- I wrote the above poem in the notes app on my phone before a 4th of July party in 2022, because once I thought of it I had to get it on paper before I forgot. I submitted it to my college's literary magazine, which is why it is nicely laid out in pages, and while all of the font and spacing choices were mine, I take no credit for the incredible background and graphic design done by the layout editor I was assigned. In the lit mag I was credited with my real name, but I replaced it with my username as usual.

As always, please give comment and critique, and please reblog and share this. It is one of my favorite pieces I've made and I want as many people as possible to see it.

#poetry #poem #my poetry #please reblog this #politics #usa #philosophy #transphobia #roe v. wave #writing #climate change #4th of july #fourth of july #don't say gay bill #texas #florida #tw: death #gun violence #cost of living #cost of medicine