SARASOTA – A Florida bill that would limit classroom discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity is flying through the state House and Senate.
“It’s not just going to ease kids back into the closet, it’s going to throw them back into the closet,” said Executive Director of ALSO Youth, Mickey Stone.
Florida lawmakers have proposed a new piece of legislation that would ban the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms for kindergarten through seventh grade.
Executive Director of ALSO Youth, Mickey Stone says limiting these kinds of discussions could leave LGBTQ+ youth out in the cold.
“For those kids who are struggling with their gender identity, with their sexual identity, they are going to have no place to turn except fringe groups like ours,” said Stone.
The two bills in the state legislature, HB 1557 and SB 1834 state that a school district “may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
“It’s going to discourage people living their true authentic selves, because they won’t have an outlet at school, which is of course where most kids spend their waking hours, typically 8 hours a day and then they go home, if they don’t have an outlet at school, and they don’t have an outlet at home, that’s when you see suicide rates go up,” said Project Pride SRQ President, Jordan Letschert.
A National survey on LGBTQ Youth’s mental health found that 52 percent of transgender and non-binary youth have considered suicide.
“And 42 percent of LGBTQ students have seriously contemplated suicide, which is based on the Trevor’s Project’s data, why are we not doing everything to lower that number,” said Letschert.
Letschert says in order to make a change, LGBTQ+ allies should stand up for those who do not yet have the right to vote.
“Schools are supposed to create good little humans that are well rounded, I would ask anyone to tell me how this furthers that agenda, this bill does not make a child more well-rounded, in-fact it takes away from that, it takes away from diversity and understanding inclusion and unfortunately those works have been weaponized when in fact they can be harnessed for good, if people want to,” said Letschert.
Several states, including Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and South Dakota, have already introduced anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2022.