DeSantis Just Declared Hunting Season In Florida's Public Schools

Welp. Nothing was stopping Florida Governor DeSantis from signing the odious "Don't Say Gay" bill, and by Gawd he signed it today (via Kirby Wilson and Jeffrey S. Solochek at the Tampa Bay Times):

On Monday, surrounded by Republican legislators, the governor signed House Bill 1557, called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill.

Critics have dubbed the measure Florida’s “don’t say gay” legislation because, although the bill does not mention the word “gay,” it prohibits instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade and potentially restricts such instruction for older kids.

The measure allows parents who believe a teacher is violating the rules to sue a school district for damages and attorneys fees. It takes effect July 1...

This is essentially a bounty program for angry Far Right parents to file lawsuit after lawsuit against every school and every teacher, an long-term attempt to bankrupt our educational districts and drive our teachers out of the classrooms before they lose their wallets.

DeSantis signed the bill at Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill. The charter school was started in 2014 by the wife of education commissioner Richard Corcoran. The governor has signed several education measures this spring at charter schools, despite the fact that the bills do not apply to charters...

So, guess what Florida: Private schools are protected but the public schools - where the lower-income families have to send their kids - are not. While these Republicans push for more children to get enrolled into charter schools - which have little regulatory protection and are not proven to offer the best education - they are doing nothing to hold those charters equal in accountability, which screws our legally mandated public schools even more.

In short: This is now hunting season and our teachers are the targets.

But it's not only the teachers who are going to suffer here.

By signing this into law, DeSantis is signaling that the very idea of homosexuality or differences in gender identity is illegal. We dare not talk about it, it is verboten now: Thus anybody who IS gay, or lesbian, or trans, or genderfluid, or still trying to figure themselves out, they are verboten as well. As the Times article summarizes:

When it was originally filed, the legislation restricted “classroom discussion” about gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill’s language later changed to prohibit “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties” about those topics in K-3 — or in older grades in a way that is not “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards...”

The law may say it affects only elementary grade levels, but this law is still vague enough about age-appropriate that ANY grade level discussion is subject to lawsuit. 

That opens up the likelihood of wingnut parents suing well up into middle-school and high-school grade levels. This opens up the likelihood that these parents are going to push their children to "set the issue" and trick as many teachers and students as possible to make sure someone somewhere does say something about their sexual identity, or what sexual identity even means.

What is going to happen now is the likelihood of these wingnut kids taunting and bullying all the other kids to trigger them into saying something they'll regret. And then making the schools over-react into something the administration regrets.

Do YOU remember what it was like to survive middle school? Those awkward years when puberty kicked in and your hormones were on overdrive? Remember how a lot of the taunts and accusations you endured from the other kids were if you were "gay" or not?

It happened to me, among all the other bullying - the use of my back for spitting practice, the head slaps on the bus, getting pushed while walking the stairs, the unwanted nicknames - was the occasional confrontation if I was gay or not. I wasn't, but there wasn't much I could say or do - other than date a girl or two, which I wasn't good at doing alas - to convince the other kids. The taunting subsided when I got to high school, but a number of them kept asking me if I was gay well into my senior year.

It's awkward when you're hetero, but what if you are really gay, or lesbian, or realizing your gender should be different, or that your gender isn't set in a box? What happens to those kids.

There are studies that show how the suicide rates for gay/lebsian/trans teens are higher than normal because they are emotionally traumatized by the social stigma they face, and that was even after gay marriage and being gay in public became more accepted for adults.

By making it impossible for teachers or school counselors to talk to teens about this, DeSantis and the Florida Republicans are making it more likely these teens will not get the help they need to grow up. This is horrifying.

By monetizing attacks on teachers and schools over which kids are gay or lesbian or trans, DeSantis is encouraging bad behavior to flare up so that the gay/lesbian/trans kids are forced to fight back and the wingnuts can feast on the prize rewards. That means you're going to see more kids get encouraged to bully the other kids, start the whisper campaigns and back-stabbings and hallway fights that will trigger an incident that would ruin lives.

In short: DeSantis just signed a bill allowing bullies free reign to attack all the other kids in schools.

How many lives will DeSantis and Florida Republicans ruin all to pander to their fear and their hate?

You know what? Screw the law.

Every kid should walk out of schools in protest. Every kid should wear rainbow colors every day in class. Every kid should shout "Say Gay!" every chance they get.

Force the Republicans and the goddamned wingnuts to face the reality that their hate laws suck. That it will all collapse and they'll be forced to scramble to repair the damage they caused, that the bills for this won't fall on the rest of us.

#SayGay Florida.