Collateral Damage

In all this brouhaha over “Woke” and banning anything LGBTQ we forget that is not without victims.

I Put an LGBTQ+ Book on My Classroom Reading List. Then Someone Filed a Police Report

3 lessons from the backlash that drove me out of my classroom

Education Week

By Sarah Bonner

July 31, 2023

Earlier this year, I designed a “book tasting” for my middle school class that changed my career in a matter of days. Inspired by a National Council of Teachers of English initiative, I generated a list of 100 books recommended by national organizations as well as reading communities like Goodreads.

Having just finished a unit centered around protest art, I wanted to use this activity to connect students with books related to their chosen interests. As many students showed interest in LGBTQ+ rights, I included Juno Dawson’s nonfiction book This Book is Gay, which I found on the American Library Association’s Rainbow Project book list.

Our class book exploration happened on a Monday. By that Wednesday, I received an email from a parent who attached pictures of Dawson’s book asking me to justify my professional decisionmaking. Before contacting me, the parent had also sent these pictures and their own interpretation to a conservative local radio news station.

I want to point out that “As many students showed interest in LGBTQ+ rights…”

Victim #1,

Within a week, everything that I had known for 20 years was taken away from me. The school board approved my settlement release, and I was no longer employed as a teacher. Blindsided by these abrupt actions, many supportive parents, students, former students, and community members came forward to speak on my behalf at the school board’s community forum, which was held ahead of the board’s vote on my settlement release, but it was too late.

Victims,

When I cleaned out my classroom and turned off the lights for the last time, I felt sad for the students I was leaving behind. Many of them reached out to me during that time and claimed that my room was one of the only rooms they felt safe to be themselves. How do they feel now? What message does this send to LGBTQ+ students?

Yes, what message does it send to not only the LGBT+ students but to all students? An article by the ADL said,

These bills and laws not only negatively impact and harm LGBTQ+ children and families, but they impact all young people. Such bills and laws often foster hostile school environments which create an unsafe and inequitable school culture for all students. These laws don’t allow the teaching or even acknowledging of LGBTQ+ people and topics. As a result, students do not get the education they need and deserve. All young people are negatively impacted if their peers, friends and family members don’t feel safe, protected or treated fairly in school. These laws ultimately affect society by perpetuating a culture of hate and injustice with less equity, more harm, more hate and more divisiveness.  

But I believe that is their ultimate goal to force us back in the closet, to make us feel dirty, to make us self-loathing. ChalkBeat put it this way…

For LGBTQ kids, just stepping out into the world as your authentic self can be treacherous. Family members could shun you, classmates bully you, and bigots harass you or worse. Youth of color and transgender kids face added resistance. At the school Nobles’ youngest child attends, a trans boy was barred from the boys locker room and a trans girl was assaulted on campus. 

Yet, instead of shielding such students, conservative lawmakers across the U.S. are trying to prohibit practices meant to make LGBTQ youth feel safe and supported at school. 

I went to Google Bard and asked it: “What all all these laws banning talking about being gay doing to children?”

Laws banning talking about being gay to children are harmful to children in a number of ways. They can:

• Silence and isolate LGBTQ+ children. When children are not allowed to talk about their sexual orientation or gender identity, they may feel like they have to hide who they are. This can lead to feelings of isolation, shame, and depression.
• Increase the risk of bullying and harassment. When children are not allowed to talk about being LGBTQ+, they may be more likely to be bullied or harassed by their peers. This can have a devastating impact on their mental and emotional health.
• Delay or prevent LGBTQ+ children from getting the support they need. When children are not allowed to talk about being LGBTQ+, they may not be able to get the support they need from their families, schools, or other adults. This can make it harder for them to cope with the challenges they face and can delay or prevent them from coming out.
• Send the message that being LGBTQ+ is wrong or bad. Laws that ban talking about being gay send the message that being LGBTQ+ is wrong or bad. This can have a negative impact on children's self-esteem and can make them feel like they are not worthy of love and acceptance.

In addition to these harms, these laws also violate the First Amendment right to free speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the right to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. These laws are an attempt to censor this important speech, and they should be challenged.

If you are concerned about these laws, there are a number of things you can do. You can contact your elected officials and ask them to oppose these laws. You can also support organizations that are working to challenge these laws. And you can talk to your children about the importance of being able to talk about their sexual orientation and gender identity.

It seem like that the AI got a good handle on what is happening to us by the right-wing Republican  horde.