Wednesday, May 11, 2022

A Difference Between Red And Blue.

Just about every school in Connecticut has a Gay Straight Alliance (Something like 120 towns out of 169 towns in Connecticut.) and some towns and cites have multiple GSAs. Back in 2019 I wrote about GSAs and only 3 states had over 50% GSAs in their schools and Connecticut was one of them.

When I graduated from grad school many of the students (Both undergraduate and graduate.) wore rainbow shawls. I know a lot of students had rainbows around them in yearbook pictures. Heck I’m am probably in one of the yearbook pictures from 2017 when I was invited to speak along with the state senator at a GSA function for the bill to ban conversion therapy so there is a good chance that one of the students took a picture that ended up in the yearbook. But down in the authoritarian state of Florida it is kaput. Nein. Verboten.

Florida school yearbook on hold over student protest photos
AP
May 10, 2022


Yearbooks at a central Florida high school won’t be distributed until images of students holding rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign while protesting the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law can be covered up.

District officials said they don’t want anyone thinking that the school supported the students’ walkout.

Lyman High School Principal Michael Hunter said in a statement Monday that “pictures and descriptions” documenting a student walk-out in March in response to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law should have been “caught earlier in the review process.”

The bill, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

“Rather than reprinting the yearbook at substantial cost and delay, we have elected to cover that material that is out of compliance with board policy so that yearbooks can be distributed as soon as possible,” the principal’s statement said.

[…]

Lawrence noted that the yearbook dedicates a separate page to the school’s Gay Straight Alliance Club and elsewhere shows students at a pride march and holding rainbow flags. He said those depictions do comply with the policy.

I would hate to be the faculty advisor, they will probably be looking for a new job right about now.

“This really shouldn’t be happening because all we did as journalists was document what was happening at our school on our campus,” Skye Tiedemann, one of the yearbook’s editors-in-chief, told the Sentinel. “To have that covered up isn’t right. ... This is censorship.”

You want to bet that the editors and faculty advisor are being blamed for it by the administration? While the students will have none of that…

Students at the school in Longwood, which is near Orlando, have created a hashtag “#stopthestickers,” which is circulating on social media. They also planned a peaceful protest at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Seminole County School Board, WKMG reported.

[…]

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from the Orlando area, said in a letter to school board members that she was disappointed by the decision.

“Students were empowered to craft a yearbook that reflects their lived experience of the academic year and did so with professionalism — sharing a piece of history on Lyman’s campus, one that should be reflected upon,” Eskamani said. “Not censored.”


Then we have this down in Virginia, where the governor is a Trump wannabe, where if you take out a book from the school library it gets reported to your parents.

Va. school board proposes telling parents how students self-identify
Some fear that teachers will be required to ‘out’ LGBTQ students to their parents
Washington Post
By Hannah Natanson
May 7, 2022


A Virginia school board is considering a proposal that would require schools to notify parents of students’ “self-identification” — spurring worries that teachers will be forced to reveal the gender identity or sexuality of LGBTQ students without their consent.

The resolution, slated for discussion by Orange County Public Schools at a board meeting Monday, was proposed by board member Chelsea Quintern in compliance with a state law signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in April that says Virginia school districts must notify parents whenever instructional materials include sexually explicit content and must provide alternative, non-explicit materials if requested.

Citing the law, the Orange County resolution says that “students shall not be subjected … to curriculum, materials, and discussions relating to sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other sexually explicit subject without explicit consent from their parent(s).”

A second provision adds that “the Orange County Public School Board requires schools to notify parents of healthcare services and involvement in critical decisions affecting students’ physical, mental and emotional well-being; including, but not limited to self-identification.”

So now being gay or trans is considered to “affecting students’ physical, mental and emotional well-being” and I say outing a student who may or not be LGBTQ+ does more to stigmatize a child and cause harm emotional harm to the child than being LGBTQ+.

As for the resolution that requires reporting students’ self-identification to parents, the teacher said it has left “students really enraged” and teachers feeling “rage and a deep sadness.” He said teachers in the district estimate that at least 80 percent of students who are members of the Gay-Straight Alliance club are “not out to their parents.”

When I hear people say that there are no differences between the Democrats and the Republicans I point out things like these incidents.

Republicans = control of our lives.

Democrats = freedom.

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