Don’t say “Don’t say gay”

Hey! Remember when you were in kindergarten?

Me neither.

How about 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade?

Remember where you sat, or next to whom?

I can remember my teachers and sort-of remember what I was instructed — reading, for sure. Probably a little math, a little geography, history, and civics.

I might have dipped Jane’s pigtails into the inkwell. I sure as hell do not remember asking her for her pronouns or any discussion of sexual identity, orientation, or gender. 

That’s why I can’t understand the manufactured hysteria around a just-passed Florida bill that opponents — in a desperate act of demonization — have labeled “don’t say gay,” although the bill says nothing like that. 

The bill’s title is the “Parental Rights in Education.” You can read it for yourself.  Parents versus educators is the newest battle line in our culture wars.

“In practice,” noted the liberal Miami Herald,  “it is unclear exactly how things will change in the classroom because sexual orientation and gender identity are not something being taught in grades K-3 at the moment. But what is certain is that the state Department of Education will be required to review and update educator practices and professional conduct principles, and other standards by June 2023.”

Key phrases — “at the moment” and “educator practices.” 

“K-3 students are not taught about sex education. But conversations about families do come up in those grade levels, such as on an assignment about a family tree,” reports the Herald.  “As explained by lawmakers, those lesson plans would still be allowed if the assignments prompt a discussion about a student’s LGBTQ family member.”

But Florida Democratic Sen. Annette Taddeo insists “This is going to endanger the safety of our LGBTQ students and adolescents.”

Endanger? How? Others say that gay children are somehow being “marginalized.”

They are not.

No one is saying sexual orientation and gender identity, etc., should never be taught in Florida schools. What the bill prohibits is making it part of the curriculum for 5, 6, and 7-year-olds. Kids barely able to tie their shoelaces should not be burdened with ideas about sexuality that even adults don’t understand. 

If it comes up in a generic discussion — like Sally asking why Billy has two mothers — the teacher can take a shot at explaining. But maybe it’s best Sally be told to ask her Mom and Dad.

If sex education is not being taught in schools, as the Herald reported, you might ask why the law is necessary.

I called the office of the sponsor, Sen. Dennis Baxley to ask. 

“We do have it happening in Florida schools,” Communications Director Matthew McClain told me.

Not teaching, in one example, but counseling a 13-year-old on gender transition, which resulted in her parents filing a federal law suit.

January and Jeffrey Littlejohn claimed the school district, without their knowledge or permission, called their daughter by they/them pronouns, solicited her bathroom preferences, and asked if she preferred to sleep with the boys on an overnight trip.

All that was enough to motivate Baxley to tell educators to, in the words of Pink Floyd, “leave them kids alone.”

There’s an appropriate age at which sex, gender, sexual practices, heteronormative, and queerness, can be studied.

If first graders are too young to be taught chemistry, they are too young to be taught sexuality.