Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does. It does not say "don't say gay", it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade (3rd grade IIRC) and be age appropriate, which should be non controversial unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.
Willing to bet you didn't read what the actual bill says or does.
Ah, yes, the new talking point that I’ve seen a lot of lately: “I’ll bet you haven’t even read it. Here, let me…” Yeah, save your patronizing, I read it just fine. And my take-away was, “don’t say gay” is about as accurate a summary as one is likely to get. Sure, those are exact words aren’t in there, but man, is that ever a weak rebuttal.
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
Discussions on gender identity and sexual orientation are the only topics outlined as not allowed.
Actual sex education (whether it's the act itself, topics on puberty, etc.) seems to still be on the table.
I've read the bill as well and I think the clear take-away is Florida doesn't want teachers talking to five-year-olds about sex, period. No sexual preferences are specified in the bill, whatsoever.
As ammending 1001.42 §8, Paragragh (c)3: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
This seems to pretty straightforwardly say that schools can't talk about the existence of gay or transgender people in K-3, or ever if it's not "age appropriate or developmentally appropriate"... according to standards that the state gets to set.
That's partly the issue of concern, isn't it? Giving children the idea that if they don't fulfil a traditional male or female role, then they must be some alternative gender identity.
Many people don't agree with this stance, both from a conceptual point of view, and that in practice it may lead impressionable children to want to modify their bodies to fit some idea of gender identity they've had instilled.
Who cares? This is literally an instance of a sitting government official using the power of his office to punish a private enterprise for not donating to him. It's that simple. That's what Disney did to offend DeSantis (that, and excersizing their free speech). It's a straight up banana republic shakedown.
The Netherlands begins education about sex and sexuality in primary school and it's not only been shown to lower the incidence of sexual abuse – as children can identify it when it happens to them and are more able to communicate with others to get help – but it also lowers the rate of teen pregnancy and STI infection. The idea that anyone would be against age-appropriate education of children about body autonomy, their anatomy, and their sexuality is mystifying to me.
Why do parents, who have a voice in how schools are run (elections) need to be able to sue school districts for something they are not doing and do not plan to do?
Like educators are already focused on providing age appropriate education, what is the point of this bill?
It appears you may not have read the bill either. It does not prevent sexual education to kids (if it stated that, it wouldn't have been that overly controversial). But that isn't what it says. It states it prohibits "discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students". That is a very important distinction from what you are saying. Sexual education is not prohibited, as long as it avoids discussing those two topics.
The other important distinction is that it is not just primary grade levels impacted, it is all levels (note the "or"s).
The part of the law that people refers to as “Don’t say gay” goes as is:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
Whether this can be reasonably interpreted as “don’t say gay” is an exercise left to the reader
Every state has a sex ed curriculum, plus every school system outside the US. By any measure: teenage pregnancies, STD rates, self-harm and suicide in connection with gender identity issues, anti-gay and anti-lesbian violence, sexual satisfaction later in life, rates of rape and other sexual violence, willingness to call out abusive behavior, and so on, the more liberal jurisdictions run circles around the christian conservative abstinence-only curricula.
We teach kids about heterosexuality (or, more accurately, heteroromance) from a very young age. It's everywhere in our culture.
Teaching children that there is another option is not inherently sexual in nature, and the continued push to declare the very existence of non-heteroromantic orientations "sexual", and thus inappropriate, is a big part of the bigotry and oppression queer people of all types face.
No one is advocating that we show kids gay porn. They are advocating that we teach kids that being gay, bi, trans, aromantic, or anywhere else on the various spectra, is all fine and normal.
> it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grade
And it does not define what "sexual education" is.
> and be age appropriate
And it does not define what "age appropriate" is or specify what legislative body is reponsible for creating and maintaining that definition.
> unless you have some weird notion that a 7 year old needs to be taught about sex.
A chasm I see between people who have differing views of this legislation is around what "sex" means. Conservatives seem to focus very heavily on the idea that this is about teachers talking about sexual intercourse. The physical acts that adults engage in. Liberals interpret the term much more broadly to cover all of the ways that human sexuality affects society and families.
From the conservative perspective, it makes a lot of intuitive sense to prevent teachers from discussing things like foreplay, BDSM, lubrication, fellatio, etc. to small children.
From the liberal perspective, it is entirely impossible to talk about damn near anything related to human family structures and relationships if anything indirectly related to sexuality is off limits. "Why do most families have a mom and a dad?" "Where do babies come from?" "Why do they look like their parents sometimes and not other times?" "What does it mean to be adopted?" "What is the difference between a dad and a stepdad?" According to the literal interpretation of the law, none of these questions can even be hinted at inside a classroom.
So which is right? The text of the law itself is ambiguous, so you have to look at the subtext. I think we could all agree that it would be wrong to ship a live walrus to someone's house without their consent. But, as far as I know, there is no law specifically prohibiting it. Should there be? Probably not.
Legislatures have finite time, so laws are passed at a point in time because those advocating it feel that it solves a particular problem that is more important than other problems that could be solved. Understanding the intent behind those pushing the law is critical to knowing what it means. The text won't give you that. You have to look at the people and their agenda.
> it says sexual education to kids should not happen before a certain grad
No, it doesn't. It says material addressing sexual orientation or gender identity cannot happen before a certain grade level. Applied strictly on its face, it would ban a lot of routine, uncontroversial content that no one (including it's sponsors) would want banned, because lots of material for kids implicitly addresses/displays orientation and gender identity, and pretty much no one cares except that cultural conservatives care if the orientations or identities involved do not fit their norms of exclusively heterosexual orientation and cisgender identity.
This, as well as the overt comments by the sponsors about the specific content they have pointed to as examples of concern, leads too concerns from others that the intent of the party whose base is culturally conservative and that dominates the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of Florida State government is not to apply the law strictly and even-handedly on its face, but selectively to suppress material according to culturally conservative values.
