We are starting to see what is happening to us under the draconian anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and it is not good.
Parents and LGBTQ+ people are fleeing the states,
Why we're leaving our beloved Texas home in search of freedom from anti-LGBTQ attacks
USA Today via Yahoo News
By Stacey Stevenson
September 6, 2022
“You're taking away my baby and my grandbabies."My dad's words nearly crushed me. Even though we were on the phone, I could tell he was holding back tears. He has always been a tough guy, but he wasn’t prepared to hear that his first-born child, daughter-in-law and grandsons were moving across the country in search of a safer place to raise our family amid escalating anti-LGBTQ hostility in our home state of Texas.
Our Texas roots run deep. My wife, Cheralyn, and I were both born and raised in Texas. I was born in a small town named Robstown, and my wife was born in Fort Worth. Texas has always been home to us – so much so that when the opportunity arose for us to move back to Texas after a brief stint in Colorado, we took it.
Yeah, so much for the “Family Values” the Republicans are always talking about! They are tearing families apart that is what they are doing. The only family values they want is their woman in dresses, pregnant, bare foot, in the kitchen, and replies only when spoken to.
Time and time again, our validity as parents – and as a family – has been questioned and minimized, as if we are playing an imaginary game of house, holding no legal rights or privileges. For some time, it felt like just something we had to deal with. But lately it’s felt nearly impossible and, frankly, downright unsafe.
And it is only getting worst in Texas as they try to out do Florida with even more despotic laws.
Officials already have vowed to introduce a bill in the upcoming session that, like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law, would effectively keep discussions of families like mine out of my children's classroom. The climate is getting increasingly hostile for LGBTQ+ people and families and, absent a major change in the upcoming elections, there is no end in sight.
LGBTQ families who fear for their safety
As the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric spills out from the state’s elected officials, we’ve watched it cascade down to the masses. Neighbors are reporting neighbors who have trans kids, and anti-LGBTQ protesters are infiltrating our beloved gayborhood to protest drag shows.
The is something right out of Germany of the 1930s! Where you fear a knock on the door, that the Brown shirts will be there looking for you!
That happened to a Texas family, the Guardian reported that,One autumn day in 2011, an investigator from our state’s department of children and families knocked on our door. At the time we lived in a conservative state in the American south. Someone had made an anonymous complaint accusing us of child abuse for allowing our child to have a girlhood. A lawyer told us that, in this state with decades of Republican-appointed judges, we were at risk of losing custody of our transgender daughter. The investigator’s visit felt like a bizarre clerical error; our four kids were thriving and we were well-liked in our community.The investigator ultimately found us to be good parents doing what was best for our child. However, it had become urgently clear that we would have to leave the deep south and move to a place where our youngest daughter, who had recently transitioned to she/her pronouns and a nickname, would have basic rights to equal education, housing, healthcare and, as she grew up, employment.
In Florida they are digging in with the “Don’t Say Gay” and the “WOKE” laws and clamping down on anything LGBTQ+.
School Board set to amend policies to adhere to 'Don't Say Gay' and 'Stop WOKE' bills
The Gainesville Sun
By Gershon Harrell
September 6, 2022
Alachua County Public Schools will soon have a better idea of how new laws restricting discussions around race, sexual orientation and gender identity will affect classrooms.The county School Board will hear a presentation on Florida House bills 7 and 1557 from school district attorney Francine Turney at a Wednesday workshop at 1 p.m. Already parents are seeing the effects of the latter law in requirements for their permission for health screenings.
House Bill 1557, aka 'Don't Say Gay'
House Bill 1557, known as Parental Rights in Education and called the "Don't Say Gay" bill by opponents, also prevents classroom discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten though third grade. House Bill 7, known as the Individual Freedom bill and dubbed the "Stop WOKE Act" by supporters, prohibits classroom discussions on certain topics regarding race and gender.
[…]
HB 1557 prohibits classroom discussions surrounding gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade classes, while requiring instruction to be age appropriate in other grades.
The district implemented this policy for kindergarten through third grade classes on July 1, when the law went into effect, according to the district. For grades four and up, it takes effect only after the Florida Department of Education develops rules or guidance on age-appropriate instruction.
And we are seeing it spill over to high school seniors and in to colleges the educators are running scared, they are afraid of getting sued by frivolous lawsuits.
House Bill 7, aka 'Stop WOKE'
HB 7 allows for the teaching of African-American history but prohibits classroom instruction and curriculum being "used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view."
HB 1557 also HB 7 have both sparked outrage and protests around the state. In Alachua County and statewide, high school students staged a walk out in protest of the HB 1557 after it passed the Florida House in a 69-47 vote.
DeSantis signed the measure into law March 28
How vague can you get? With wording like that "used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view." teachers have no idea where the line is that they can’t cross, no wonder teachers are leaving Florida in droves!
The national teacher shortage is growing. In Florida, controversial laws are making it worse.
Advocates say low pay and a hostile climate toward educators, particularly around LGBTQ+ issues and race, are pushing people out of the profession in droves.
19th News
By Nadra Nittle Education reporter
July 21, 2022
“Do you have a dog?” “Who’s your boyfriend?” “Are you married?”Anita Carson fielded questions from students about her personal life each year she taught for Polk County Public Schools in Florida, giving them a short presentation about her friends and family and asking them to do the same. But for the first time in 12 years, when school resumes this fall, the bisexual middle school instructor won’t be in a classroom. She resigned in May due to a combination of factors, chief among them Florida’s recent passage of laws, including “Don’t Say Gay” and the Stop WOKE Act, that limit what educators can say about issues such as sexual orientation, gender identity and race.
[…]
“With the very blatant attacks on education and on marginalized communities, I just couldn’t teach anymore,” said Carson, who is now a community organizer for Equality Florida, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. “I cannot fathom being in a classroom where I cannot support my kids to the fullest of my ability because there are now laws that tell me what I can and cannot do to support my kids; like, that’s heartbreaking.”
And what does the Governor of the great state of Florida want to do to alleviate the teacher shortage? Well he has this great plan! Hire retired fireman, police officers, and first responders… yeah they know how to teach math and English, they should have no problem teaching algebra and calculus! Right? First responders are proficient with dangling participles after all they speak it so why would it be difficult to teach?
Florida is going cuckoo. A raving lunatic is in charge of the state who dreams of becoming president!
Also in Florida they said that the "Don't Say Gay" law only applied to K-12... but they lied.
Remember how Republicans said ‘Don’t say gay’ law only applied to grades K-3? Big lie | Opinion
Miami Herald
By Fabiola Santiago
September 9, 2022
The Miami-Dade County School Board revealed itself this week for what it is.In an 8-1 vote Wednesday night, the School Board rejected the national recognition of October as LGBTQ History Month, proving that the intent all along of Florida’s “Don’t say gay” law was to hurt, shame and keep gay children and parents in the closet.
But the shame is theirs.
These elected officials showcased their anti-gay bias, acting like a right-wing political body, beholden to the ring leader in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and his minion GOP lawmakers.
Cowardly, and at the same time autocratic, all but one member acted dismissively of Miami-Dade’s diverse student population, signaling that they don’t care about the concerns of all parents and the education of all children.
Only those who fit the governor’s preferred political profile will be served.
[…]
And the radical, right-wing squeeze will only deepen after the two recently elected and DeSantis-endorsed Monica Colucci and Roberto Alonso take over the District 8 and District 4 School Board seats now held by Marta Pérez and Perla Tabares Hantman. They were considered moderate Republicans, although they didn’t show it Wednesday. This is what happens when only 19% of voters show up in a life-altering primary like August’s in Miami-Dade: The partisans who faithfully vote take over, and democratic institutions like public-school systems suffer.
We need to get out the vote! That is what happens when people don’t show up and vote. Voter apathy will kill us and the nation.
Again in Florida, a conference pulls out of the state because of the oppressive anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
Large gaming event set for Florida canceled because of Don’t Say Gay law
Games Done Quick was going to hold its event in Orlando, but it's moving online because Florida is no longer "a safe place for our community."
LGBTQ Nation
By Alex Bollinger
September 9, 2022
The organizers of a gaming convention who originally planned to hold their event in Florida have canceled, citing both Florida’s lax COVID-19 policies and its hardline anti-LGBTQ stance. The group said that the state is no longer “a safe place for our community.”“While we would love to return in-person, we’ve determined that to provide a safe and welcoming event to all, it was best that we move away from our originally planned location in Florida,” the website for Games Done Quick (GDQ) says. “Given the state’s continued disregard for COVID-19’s dangers (including anti-mandate vaccination policies) and an increased aggression toward LGBTQ+ individuals, including the law colloquially known as ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ we do not believe it is a safe place for our community at this time.”
[…]
Several prominent speedrunners who participate in GDQ events are transgender, and transgender people have been especially targeted by Florida Republicans. In the past several years, the state has passed a ban on transgender students participating in school sports, banned transgender people of all ages from using Medicaid insurance to cover gender-affirming care, instructed schools to ignore federal law banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) even declared a cisgender woman the winner of a swimming competition because he didn’t like the fact that a transgender woman won.
Thank you for changing the event location, hopefully more places will cancel their events in Florida.
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