The impacts of “Don’t Say Gay” will be “amplified ten-fold” for Black students, advocates say.
The Florida State Senate passed legislation dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics on Tuesday as part of a broader attack on lessons about LGBTQ identity, sex education, racial justice, and other subjects that are routinely exploited by right-wing media outlets and politicians to galvanize their base. The legislation, known officially as HB 1557, would ban teachers from discussing sexual and gender identity in all classrooms below the fourth grade and require lessons for older students be “age appropriate,” a vague standard that opponents say would swamp cash-strapped public schools with expensive litigation. As advocates point out, the bill is also a “Don’t Say Trans” bill that comes as Republican policy makers in Texas, Alabama, and beyond are attempting to score political points by eroding the rights of transgender youth and their parents. LGBTQ and civil rights groups warn the legislation would muzzle teachers and students and foster an environment of intolerance at school for LGBTQ youth and students with gay, queer, trans and non-binary parents. Along with efforts to stifle history lessons and anti-racist curriculums, advocates say that putting LGBTQ students in the crosshairs of this partisan culture war is detrimental to their emotional and psychological well-being and flies in the face of efforts to prevent bullying. For Black students and students of color who already struggle to feel safe at school, the harms of the anti-LGBTQ legislation would be “amplified ten-fold,” according to David J. Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), a leading Black LGBTQ+ civil rights group. “No one gains from watching elected officials bully vulnerable children and their families in an attempt to deny that LGBTQ+ people exist and deserve love and respect,” Johns said in a statement. Transgender, nonbinary, gay, lesbian and bisexual youth report discrimination and mental health distress at notably higher rates than their cisgender and heterosexual peers, and LGBTQ youth of color are more likely to report suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety that white LGBTQ youth. Nearly 52 percent Black LGBTQ+ students already feel unsafe in school due to their sexual orientation and 40 percent feel unsafe due to their gender expression, according to a national survey by NBJC.
