It Is Working!

It is having the desired effect, it is having the effect that the Republicans want… forcing us back into the closet and creating fear.

The banning of books, the harassments, the vandalism, the bullying, and the anti-LGBTQ+ laws are all taking a toll on LGBTQ+ students.

From book bans to 'Don’t Say Gay' bill, LGBTQ kids feel 'erased' in the classroom
Facing limiting legislation, book bans, harassment and more, gay and transgender youth say they are being “erased” from the U.S. education system.
NBC Out News
By Matt Lavietes
>February 20, 2022


Students have repeatedly vandalized Pride posters at Spencer Lyst’s high school in Williamson County, Tennessee. Teachers have skipped over LGBTQ issues in class textbooks. Trans kids in his state have been legally barred from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Parents have called on school officials to remove books about sexual orientation and gender identity from the county’s elementary curriculum. And while leading his school’s Pride club at a September homecoming parade, Lyst and other LGBTQ students were booed by a group of parents.

“I’m so used to it, but it shouldn’t be something I have to think about,” Lyst, 16, said of the near-constant feeling of being attacked at school because of his identity.

He even said it’s “difficult” to walk into the school bathroom for fear of what or who “might be in there.”

“Like, can I go to the bathroom or am I going to get hate for just existing?” he said. 

Lyst’s school experience is a far cry from an isolated case.

And it is not just Tennessee, it is spreading all over the Republican states in a full court press on our rights, forcing us back in the closets, all around nation even in blue states they are attacking our books, our right to assemble, our rights of free speech.

Since the start of the school year, school officials in states across the country have banned books about gay and trans experiences, removed LGBTQ-affirming posters and flags and disbanded gay-straight alliance clubs. In school districts throughout the nation, students have attacked their queer classmates, while state lawmakers have filed hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills with many seeking to redefine lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students’ places in U.S. schools. 

“There is no separating any of these things,” Mary Emily O’Hara, the rapid response manager at LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said at a media briefing on Monday. “What we’re seeing here is anti-LGBTQ groups, on a national level, making schools the new battleground across the board, across various kinds of school policies and various forms of legislation. Schools are the target right now for the anti-LGBTQ movement.”

In the majority of cases, conservative school officials, lawmakers and parents say LGBTQ issues do not belong in school because they are “political” and “not age-appropriate” for students. Conversely, queer youth and their families, along with LGBTQ and ally teachers, say they feel they are being “erased” from the U.S. education system.

[…]

DeSantis has found a weak spot, and that weak spot is children,” she added, suggesting that DeSantis is supporting the measure for political gain.

The Republicans are attacking most vulnerable, the children. They don’t care the harm that they are doing to the children. They don’t care that this violate our Frist Amendment rights.

“I felt that my community was under attack, that they were trying to silence LGBTQ+ experiences and voices within our community,” Petocz, who is gay and led a student protest in response to the book’s removal, said. “We’re already a minority. Why are you trying to suppress this critical information within our libraries, you know? These books are critical to providing a sense of identity.”

Books about race, sexual orientation and gender identity have historically been challenged in schools, but over the last several months, school libraries have seen a surge of opposition.

In the fall, as book bans started to take off in counties across the country, national groups — including No Left Turn in Education and Moms for Liberty — began circulating lists of school library books that they said were “indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology” to rally support. 

The bans then became a talking point in the contentious Virginia governor’s race, where the Republican candidate, former private equity executive and political newcomer Glenn Youngkin, made education a central issue of his campaign and swept to victory. 

They call the books pornographic but there is no sex in the books. However, most people haven’t even read the books so when they hear pornography they think the worst and they think in all the graphic details, while in reality it is only holding hands or a kiss.

They are targeting LGBTQ+ books, books about Black, and slavery and they have created a vocal and angry minority of conservative parents. The New York Times wrote,

“The politicalization of the topic is what's different than what I’ve seen in the past,” said Britten Follett, the chief executive of content at Follett School Solutions, one of the country’s largest providers of books to K-12 schools. “It’s being driven by legislation, it’s being driven by politicians aligning with one side or the other. And in the end, the librarian, teacher or educator is getting caught in the middle.”

[…]

The advocacy group No Left Turn in Education maintains lists of books it says are “used to spread radical and racist ideologies to students,” including Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Those who are demanding certain books be removed insist this is an issue of parental rights and choice, that all parents should be free to direct the upbringing of their own children.

Others say prohibiting these titles altogether violates the rights of other parents and the rights of children who believe access to these books is important. Many school libraries already have mechanisms in place to stop individual students from checking out books of which their parents disapprove.

This divisive politics is not good for the country, it is tearing us apart! At a school board here in Connecticut over changing the school mascot got so heated that a parent and a board member got into a tussle, the parent wanted to keep the mascot and both of them were arrest. Now what does that teach the children in the room?

This is a battle of ideologies, those that want to limit what children are taught and those that believe children should have the tools to learn and make their own decisions.