Not Going Down Quietly.

Down in Florida the teachers and students are not just rolling over and accept the “Do Not Say Gay” law. There has been some novel pushbacks.

Memo Circulated To Florida Teachers Lays Out Clever Sabotage Of 'Don't Say Gay' Law
Every student should now use "they" and "them" pronouns to avoid obvious gender identifiers like "he" and "she," indicates a letter reportedly circulating in the state.
Huffington Post
By Mary Papenfuss
April 2, 2022


A letter reportedly circulating among Florida teachers is highlighting a thought-provoking sabotage of the state’s controversial new “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Since it’s now illegal to address gender identity or sexual orientation issues in schools for students from kindergarten through third grade, the letter recommends referring to all students as “they” and “them” to avoid “gendered pronouns” like “he” and “she.”

Also, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” should clearly be dropped for all teachers to conform with the law, the letter argues.

The strategy was spelled out in a “template” letter for teachers in Palm Beach County, according to the right-wing Moms for Liberty organization, which obtained a copy of the memo. The group posted the template on its Twitter site, and it’s now tearing through social media.

The “Don’t Say Gay” Florida law in fact does not mention the word “gay” anywhere in the text. And since it now bans addressing gender identity and sexual orientation issues in lower grades, the law could convincingly be understood to apply to all genders and sexual orientations.

Moms for Liberty called on parents in its tweet to “take a stand” against the perspective in the letter. But many responses on Twitter pointed out that ignoring all gender identities and sexual orientation appears to now be the law.

In the spirit nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. this is perfect, it complies with the law but is a zinger.

Then a student also got his own zinger in.

A Florida student turned state's controversial new law into a viral lesson on the Stonewall riots
Is there anything these kids can't do?
Upworthy
By Jacalyn Wetzel
April 13, 2022


One thing that screams amazing is Gen Z kids and the empowerment they exude. Whether it’s organizing protests or demanding to be taken seriously as their true selves, they can be truly awe-inspiring. Teens in the '90s perfected the eye roll and developed a “Clueless” croak, but teens and young adults of today seem to be activists from birth. Bucking the system that attempts to put them in a box or quiet their voices, today’s youth are in a league of their own, and it’s something to take in.

Will Larkins is one of those precocious Gen Zers that is breaking the mold on what society deems appropriate for teens to do. He's a junior at Winter Park High School in Winter Park, Florida, and has been making his presence known through his LGBTQ+ activism. He is the president and co-founder of his school’s Queer Student Union. On March 7, he led a walkout of more than 500 students in protest of Florida's proposed "Don't Say Gay" bill. Larkins, who uses they/him pronouns, posted a video to his Twitter account showing him teaching a history lesson on the Stonewall riots, which occurred in 1969. His history class was covering history spanning the 1960s and '70s, and he asked permission to include this bit of LGBTQ+ history that many people don’t learn about in school.

Here is a video of his Stonewall Uprising…

Also there have been a number of law suits against the law.

Is Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay Law’ Legal? A New Lawsuit Argues No
Education Week
By Eesha Pendharkar
April 12, 2022


Gay rights activists are suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the state board of education over the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law, claiming that it harms LGBTQ students and families and violates their freedom of speech and equal protection rights.

DeSantis, a Republican, signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill—officially known as the Parental Rights in Education bill—into law on March 28. It goes into effect July 1, after which teachers will not be allowed to provide classroom instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity” to K-3 students. For older grades, teachers can teach these topics in an “age-appropriate” manner, according to the law. The state board of education will determine what “age-appropriate” can encompass. Parents will be able to sue districts if they believe that teachers are in violation of the law.

[...]

“The law is singularly designed to censor speech about LGBTQ people,” he said. “The reality of the language behind how the bill was introduced, how the bill was talked about, by the sponsors, and the language that the governor has used even before he signed it makes it pretty clear that the bill’s target is the LGBTQ community.”

According to the lawsuit, the law impinges upon students’ First Amendment right to receive and debate information and ideas concerning sexual orientation and gender identity and their right to freedom of expression because they can’t freely discuss their sexual orientations or gender identities in the classroom under the law.

It also claims that the Parental Rights in Education bill violates students’, teachers’, and parents’ 14th Amendment rights by violating the equal protection clause, because LGBTQ students or families will be treated differently based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

So… this is going to be tied up in court cases for years and mostly likely go all the to the Supreme Court.