The Don't Say Gay bill

That was my experience as well: I knew next to nothing about my teachers' personal lives. I was aware the ones with a "Mrs." title were married, and that one of the assistant teachers took a semester off when she got married, but that was it.

There need to be boundaries. Teachers aren't there to share their personal lives with the students, they're there to teach. And there needs to be absolute transparency about what's taught in the classroom.

The boundary lines we've had since I was a kid have been fine all these decades.
Suddenly, when we started treating LGBT people like fellow humans, did this "this has to stoooopp! " shit kick in.
Funny how that happened.

What's changed isn't the advent of LGBT students. It's the idea that, because of LGBT students, these boundaries now must be removed.

Well, the arguments I've seen against having boundaries seem to begin with "but what if a trans kid..."

Here are my positions:

1. School curricula should be transparent. The public should be able to readily see the lesson plan for any class, to know what is being taught and when. Teachers should not deviate from the plan unilaterally.

2. Parents and the public should be able to give input to, question, and demand accountability from their local school board.

3. Teachers should maintain a professional boundary with their students at all times. No fraternization.

4. Any concerns a teacher has with a student (outside of normal academics) should be brought to the administration. Parents should be notified, and any course of action should proceed only with their knowledge and consent, unless the circumstances indicate legal wrongdoing by the parent, in which case the matter should be referred to law enforcement.

5. School personnel are not authorized to give or facilitate psychiatric or non-emergency medical care to students. Minor medical issues may be handled by a school nurse.

6. Sex education should be strictly age appropriate, per an established, published, and agreed-upon plan, and with the explicit consent of parents.

7. Moral, spiritual, religious, and political training should not take place. Teachers and administration may enforce civil conduct, but not instill beliefs.

That's where I'm coming from. What's unreasonable?

Not the argument being made.
Same old old boundaries.
We're just letting LGBT people in.
Well, we have been for the last couple decades.
Just all of a sudden "this has to stooooop! ".

I'm not objecting to either LGBT teachers or students. And the position I defined will work as well for them as for everyone else.

I do object to the boundaries being eroded. If they're not actually being eroded, great. If there are laws enforcing these boundaries, also great.

I believe--and, please, someone debate me if you think I'm wrong--that the position I outlined is correct, appropriate, and long-standing. If you think any of those points are controversial, let's talk about it.

I don't agree that this is happening.
I think it's ginned up by lying bigots.

Paladin has zero children.

Then so what? If the law only reinforces what's already the rule, then having the law is, at worst, superfluous.

Your objection seems to be about the who or the why and not the actual substance of the law.

Also, not saying this is you, but people who make the argument that "X doesn't happen in the schools and you have no right to tell us we can't X" wind up making a stronger case for these laws.

Correct. But how would my position be different if I did?

I don't agree that that's the case.

I'm having a hard time pinpointing your objection. Specifically, what does the Florida law do that is objectionable? Here's the text of the bill.

they have never not been, and it's ALWAYS been true that the dominate worldview in a given state decided HOW (not IF) students would be indoctrinate and usually there was a minority dissenting from that agenda and resisting it.

This is the whole goddamn history of public education and, in large part, much of the motivation for even HAVING public education.

The right has never been hesitant to force whitewashed history and religious worldviews through public education and made no real secret about it. The only assume the role of "resistance" when they lack the political power to serve that agenda.

Creates a chilling effect in the classroom and among staff in which teachers or administrators dare not get anywhere close to admitting there's even such a thing as being gay or trans for fear of harassing lawsuits from reactionary right wingers. The law is deliberately vague, what they claim to be the intent of the law was already covered by an existing Florida law and they voted down clarifying amendments to specified that the law would do what they have been claiming they wanted it to do because said claims are lies.

Already we've seen gay teachers bail rather than risk the vitriol, and people on the right admitting that's a good outcome in their view.

Hell, Florida just rejected 54 MATH textbooks for being "too woke"

One of the little rhetorical dodges that right wingers love to use is to pretend they never intended for a law to do X because the actual text doesn't say "a law to do X" - knowing full well they wrote it vaguely enough that X would happen - as intended.

Don't be an asshole is a universal proposition. The only ones who seek to more narrowly define it are people who revel in being assholes.

if you believe that LGBT kids should be taught to be ashamed of their nature and other kids should have a blank check to shame them then you do not, in fact, believe in "live and let live" - you believe in conformity just like those you criticize.

the central text of the bill forbids teaching a certain sort of CURRICULUM <that's another word for "the lesson"

Also - "some people are different, be kind to them anyway" is NOT gender politics. Nothing about acknowledging the reality and legitimacy of LGBT people is political - rahter the act of attempting to repress that knowledge is where the politics come through the door.

Same with all the rest of the reactionary right wing speech codes:

Teacher: "this thing exists (whether the thing is a trans classmate or systemic racism or evolution)
Politician: "we don't want kids to know the thing exists! STOP teaching that under penalty of law!"

Are you bright enough to figure out which of these has introduced politics into the classroom?

(I suspect not)

I don't see that in the actual law. That seems like a projection.

But anyway, teachers shouldn't be saying "gay" or "trans" or anything of a sexual nature to the class range specified. Aside from the age appropriateness of such topics, there's simply no need as part of a curriculum for that age. And teachers are neither qualified nor authorized to advise children on any aspect of sexuality.

The actual text of the law seems reasonable to me. I don't find it vague.

It could be that people are buying into the paranoia around the law, rather than the actual law. If the law is used to go further than what it actually allows, there are remedies for that.

Florida should be transparent about why they're rejecting books, but they certainly have the right to do so.

So, give me a hypothetical. How does a well-meaning teacher fall into a trap given this law?

and THERE it is in it's most basic formulation:

You're simply bigoted and you want laws that empower bigotry. People who are not bigots have no more problem in using the pronouns a person prefers than they do referring to the former Miss White as Mrs. Green when she married that Green fella she's been seeing.

You CHOOSE to recognize one of these changes as ordinary and reasonable and the others as too great a demand on your free will right to be hateful. That choice can only happen as a result of bigotry. Certain types of people, who have done no one any harm, are nevertheless unworthy of your respect or the respect of their classmates,coworkers, whatever. They are beneath you. Second class.

FFS no one is going to write a law which says "A bill to create a chilling effect..."

Literally impossible. Being homosexual is the functional equivalent of being heterosexual and nothing in this bill, or any other, or in common practice forbids a teacher from acknowledging the existence and propriety of being hetero or cis. As has been noted, if a child can see mom and dad, or big sis and her boyfriend, or whomever, being romantic and this isn't objectionable - but seeing a same sex couple display the same behavior is forbidden, that position is bigoted. The actions are the moral and natural equivalent of each other.

Thus, if a child comes in in second grade having (socially) transitioned from Bobby to Betty it is a perfectly ordinary thing to have a discussion about what it means to be trans and to encourage the kids to be kind and accepting of their classmate. Likewise if Miss white marries her girlfriend over the summer, it is no less legitimate a discussion to acknowledge the nature of that relationship than it would be if her spouse was male.

Any position other than that is straight, uncut bigotry - arising from the view that trans and gay people DESERVE less respect than "normal" people because there's something wrong with them.

Utter bullshit. It's no different than acknowledging that people have different religions, or different abilities (i.e. if a student or a teacher is blind it's not unnatural to discuss what it's like to be blind, or if one of the girls wears a hajab kids will ask question about that and the ensuing discussion is perfectly natural.

You lot feel your sphincter clinch at the word "sexuality" as if the teacher will say "now we're going to discuss where the penis goes (which is something already forbidden in Florida law) but that has never been what's actually happening. Get your minds out of the gutter.

You're not the one scared of getting sued

That's the EXACT intent. I told you this already. I don't know if you are feigning the innocent act or actually that gullible but either way, you're displaying a less-than-middleschool familiarity with how these things have always worked.

I'm not going to take the time to look up the story for such bad faith reasoning but we don't need hypothetical, this shit is already happening in real time. Even before this law passed there are constantly parents objecting that simple everyday interactions like a teacher acknowledging he and his boyfriend got married being called out as "inappropriate" by bigoted parents. NOW the extra layer is if he's not disciplined parents can sue the school.

There was a story from Ohio just yesterday, the guy who wrote the book "It's Okay to be a Unicorn" had been scheduled to read his book at a school and the administrator canceled the appearances because he ANTICIPATED parental complaints - even though the book has ZERO LGBT content, it just "felt" like a gay friendly message so let's not take any chances.

THAT is what all the Republican attacks on schools and teachers WANT to happen - repress ideas they do not agree with and make schools and teachers terrified to take ANY chance that could get them sued or fired or fined or even jailed.

So you want a hypothetical - I gave you one: what does a homeroom teacher do when kids ask question about "Betty" being a girl now? How do they even acknowledge the question without being "inappropriate"?

Whatever answer you give, if it's not "have a respectful discussion of trans identities" won't be what the law SAYS to do but it will be what the men who passed the law intended to happen.[/quote]

It's quite interesting the people in this thread who apparently went through all their schooling never seeing their teachers as actual people.

If we're trading anecodotes, while I was going through primary school most of the class would have been able to tell you if our teacher in any given year was married and had kids, even if we didn't know that many details.

Let's say the class consumes a bit of media that involves two people of the same gender romantically interested.

Then a kid pipes up asking about it.

Anything the teacher says to acknowledge it's a normal thing that some people do seems like it could fall foul of laws like these.

I grew up in a small town so everyone knows everyone else and I have a huge family and I have teachers in my family. There were some teachers we didn’t know much about and by the time were in junior high we knew who was gay and who wasn’t. We joked about it in private, but it was never a conversation we had with the teachers because really it’s none of my business.

@Uncle Albert had it right weeks ago, “that’s a question you should ask your parents.”

And the right thing would be to do the same thing regarding any questions about mommy's, daddys, or marriage?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/14/unicorn-book-jason-tharp-ohio/

I thought you said not to be an asshole? So it is do as you say not as you do? I see why you get along with UA now, you are both a pair who cannot practice what they preach.

O Rly?

Guess what boss? Their are exceptions - documented by biological science - that there are not, in fact, "only two sexes" and so if making that false claim is appropriate, then in the same classroom teaching the facts would be appropriate... right?

Facts.

The root and branch of ALL "Gay is a choice and trans ain't real" in all it's variations - included when spouted by non-believers - is religious tradition. If you say "it is wrong to acknowledge the legitimacy of being gay or trans in front of kids" you are asserting a religious principle, not a scientific one.

tell me you know fuck-all about the actual science without using those words.

besides the know fact that your stat is pulled out of your ass, what we DO know about is inevitably low because the sample of people who ever get kareotyped in their entire life is not a statistically significant sample.